


Raised With the Fume of Sighs

by profdanglais



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 21:50:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 58,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/profdanglais/pseuds/profdanglais
Summary: Killian Jones is madly in love with the woman across the hall, but Emma Swan wants nothing to do with him and his playboy ways. Until one stormy night when she dares to let him in and nothing is ever the same again.





	1. Chapter 1

Killian Jones awoke in a strange bed in a strange room, yet he’d been there before. Every Sunday morning was the same, just a different strange bed and a different strange room. He could just see out the window of this one, and took a minute to try to locate any landmarks that would give him a hint as to where he might be. No luck, though. The window was small and the postage stamp sized view of the New York skyline it afforded revealed no secrets. Behind him, Killian felt someone stirring. Before he could react, slender arms snaked around him and small hands began running their crimson-tipped fingers through the thick hair on his chest.

Being a professional at the Morning After, or at the very least an amateur of Olympic standing, Killian was quickly able to summon just the right smile to beam at his bedmate— vague enough to get him the fuck out of there as quickly as possible, and charming enough to leave minimal damage in his wake.

He rolled over, simultaneously dazzling her with the smile and extracting himself from her embrace, just managing to stifle the cringe that wanted to contort his face at the sight of her long, blonde hair. _Goddamn it_ , he thought, _I’ve bloody done it again_. He didn’t have much memory of the night before, but he was pretty sure he’d intended to hit on the brunette. So why was he waking up next to the blonde?

Stupid question, of course. He knew the answer.

Keeping the charming smile on his face with what he felt was a pretty heroic effort at eight a.m. on a hungover Sunday, he greeted the blonde.

“Hello, love.” He couldn’t remember her name, but it didn’t seem to matter. She blushed and batted her eyelashes. Killian stifled a pained sigh. It was too bloody early for this particular species of bollocks.

“Morning, handsome,” she cooed. “I was just going to make some coffee. Care for a cup?”

“Sounds wonderful, darling, but I really must be going. I’ve a busy morning ahead.” His voice was firm, though his smile didn’t falter. He rolled out of bed and grabbed his clothes. Fortunately, they all seemed to be present, and in plain sight. He’d had mornings when they weren’t.

The blonde’s face fell in disappointment, but she rallied quickly. “Oh, come on,” she wheedled, “I’m sure you can take a little time, it’s so early yet.” He continued pulling on his clothes, ignoring the hungry way her eyes raked his body. “I could make us breakfast,” she offered hopefully. “I toast a mean bagel.”

Killian chuckled obediently at the mild joke, but remained firm. That was the trick, he’d discovered. Never hesitate, never falter.

“I couldn’t let you go to all that trouble, love,” he said. He’d managed to dress in record time and was just pulling on his boots. He stood up and grabbed his jacket, subtly checking the pocket to ensure that his wallet and keys were still there, then turned to the sex-touselled woman in the bed. She really was lovely, he thought, and she seemed genuinely nice. She definitely didn’t deserve to be used and tossed aside in this way. But then, none of them did. He couldn’t allow himself to feel guilty about her or any of the others. The magnitude of that guilt would swallow him whole. Instead, he treated her to a dazzling smile, and was gratified when she couldn’t help but return it.

“I had a great time, love,” he said, giving her the bedroom eyes and allowing his voice to drop to a calculatedly sexy growl. “You enjoy your bagel, and your day.” She flushed pink and her eyes glazed, but before she could react he had turned quickly on his heel and fled out the door of the bedroom and then of the apartment, and it wasn’t until much later that she realised he hadn’t left his number or any hint that he’d see her again, or even once spoken her name.

 

*.*.*. 

 

Forty-five minutes later, Killian staggered out of the elevator in his building, digging his keys from his pocket and wondering if he should have taken the blonde up on her offer of coffee after all, maybe seen if she could rustle up some bacon and an egg or two to go with the bagel. He ached clear to his bones and he would have keelhauled his own grandmother for a cup of anything caffeinated, a handful of aspirin, and a nice greasy fry-up.

Carefully, he extracted his front door key from amongst the others on the ring, wishing that his keys would stop making such a bloody racket, when a door opened behind him. He tensed, knowing what was coming, craving and dreading it in equal measure.

“Just getting in, then, Jones?” a voice inquired sweetly.

The mere sound of it ignited every cell in his body, sent his heart leaping to his throat and lust snaking through his gut, teasing his exhausted cock back to life. He closed his eyes and stood for a moment, aching and wrecked, before schooling his features into an impassive expression and turning around to face his across-the-hall neighbour.

Even after years of living across the narrow hallway from her, the sight of her face still hit him like a cannon shot, shaking him to his soul and threatening to bring him to his knees before her. This morning she looked fresh as a daisy, her golden hair bright and bouncy around that heartbreaking face, her green eyes looking clear and well-rested as they raked over him scornfully, taking in his dishevelled hair, bloodshot eyes, and last night’s clothes reeking of cigarettes and rum.

“As you see, Swan,” he replied with a small bow, shooting her the cocky smirk he knew she hated. Her eyes narrowed and she gave him a look of disgust. He’d expected that look, actively tried to provoke it, but still, it sent a piercing pain straight through his heart.

Why did he keep doing this to himself, he wondered. He knew she left for the women’s shelter where she volunteered at eight forty-five every Sunday. So why did he always end up coming home at that exact time, exposing himself and his lifestyle to her censure?

Stupid question. He knew the answer.

“Off for another round of do-gooding, love?” he asked her, hooking a thumb into the waistband of his jeans and leaning against the doorjamb, hips subtly tilted forward, slight mockery in his tone. He hated playing this role, but it was their routine, what she expected of him. If he told her how much he sincerely admired her dedication to helping traumatised women, she’d probably slap him.

Her mouth thinned and her eyes shot green daggers at him. “Off to counsel survivors of violence at the hands of scumbags, you mean?” she sneered. “Yes, I am. And I suppose you’re just stumbling home after another night of empty debauchery. Doesn’t that get old?”

“Exceedingly so,” he replied, with more honesty than he’d ever wish to admit. “But it beats the alternatives, darling.”

She rolled her eyes and headed for the elevator, not sparing another word or glance for him. Killian managed to unlock his door and stagger into his apartment, shutting the door carefully behind him before collapsing against it, slowly sliding down into a sitting position, letting his head fall into his hands. He really needed to stop torturing himself like this, he thought. But he knew he wouldn’t, just as he knew he wouldn’t stop fucking avatars of her every Saturday night. He couldn’t.

He leaned back and slammed his aching head repeatedly against the door, letting his misery wash over him and cursing himself for a fool. _Could you be any more utterly pathetic_ , he berated himself. Almost certainly not, was the answer. There could be little more pathetic than a man madly, hopelessly in love with a woman who could barely stand the sight of him. For more than two years he’d lived in this hell, yet he made no attempt to escape it. In fact he had actively resisted offers from his friends and colleagues of larger apartments in better neighbourhoods. Killian literally could not bear the thought of ever leaving his small apartment with its leaky plumbing and poor insulation. If he moved away he would never see her again, and that was unthinkable. However much she hated him. Even Emma Swan’s scorn and disgust was better than no Emma Swan at all. 

 

*.*.*.

 

When Emma returned to her apartment at two o’clock that afternoon, she exited the elevator with caution. She was fairly certain that Killian Jones would have long since crashed somewhere in his apartment, trying to sleep off his hangover, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She’d had a good day at the shelter, and was buzzing with the pleasure of having accomplished something good. The last thing she needed was another unsettling encounter with her neighbour to set her nerves on edge again. It was bad enough when she was prepared to see him, but the unexpected encounters really threw her off her game.

She held her breath as the elevator doors opened, then released it in a whoosh when she saw that the coast was clear. Quickly, she unlocked her door and slipped into her apartment before Killian could appear and taunt her with his blue eyes and his bone structure. Not that he would, she admitted to herself. In fairness, she had to concede that after their unfortunate first meeting he’d never once tried to hit on her or done anything to make her feel uncomfortable—well, other than his habit of drinking too much and sleeping around, and that was really none of her business. It truly wasn’t his fault that she found him so unnerving.

Emma felt a bit guilty about how badly she treated him, but she desperately needed somekind of defence against him and the crazy way her body reacted to his presence. She knew she’d badly overreacted the first time they met. All he’d done was knock on her door to introduce himself and ask if she had any milk he could borrow, but Emma had taken one look at his handsome face with its charming grin and its bright blue eyes and before his deep, gorgeously accented voice even had a chance to register in her brain, her walls had shot up and she’d known beyond any shadow of a doubt that she could never allow this man to get anywhere near her. She’d slammed the door in his face and leaned against it, trying to steady her breathing and slow her racing heartbeat. One friendly smile from him had twisted her belly into knots and sent heat flooding to her core. Emma shuddered to think of the wreck he could make of her if he put any actual effort into it. No, Killian Jones was dangerous, and she needed to keep him at a distance.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind her attitude, greeting her with a careless smirk and a smartass comment whenever they met, playing into her low opinion of him in a way that felt almost deliberate. Yet it did not escape her notice that in the process of snarking back over the years he had managed to wheedle a fair amount of information out of her and share an equal amount of his own, to the point where after two years of neighbor-dom they knew enough about each other that in _very_ different circumstances they could have been called friends. She knew, for example, that Killian had been in the Royal Navy, that he’d had a brother who’d died tragically and that this loss had sent him spinning off the rails and led to his discharge. She knew he’d moved to New York from England for a fresh start, and that he tended bar at a British-style pub in lower Manhattan that was popular with naval workers. She knew he liked soccer and old movies and had formed a tight-knit group of friends with some other British expats, and that they could often be obnoxiously raucous when watching “the football” at his place. She knew that he never, ever brought women to his apartment. He always went to theirs. He had a silver tongue and a wicked sense of humour, his jokes more often than not cuttingly clever. If Emma let herself, she could almost believe that there was more to him than just the sleazy womaniser, the bartender who went home with a different woman every night — _such_ a tragic cliche!— but Emma refused to let herself think too carefully about Killian or his life. He was nothing to her, and she intended to keep it that way.

Emma tossed her bag on the table and headed to her bedroom to put on some comfy sweats and a tank top. After fixing herself some hot chocolate topped with a sprinkle of cinnamon, she curled up on the sofa with her laptop. Opening the lid, she took a deep breath when she saw the page she’d left open in her browser. It was the application form for the Master of Social Work program at New York University. Determinedly, she began filling in the fields with her name and details. She was ready to take this plunge.

Nerves fluttered in her belly as she typed. She had never exactly been an academic whiz. Growing up in the foster system had meant that she was constantly changing schools, and never sufficiently secure in her living situation to be able to really get comfortable enough to focus on studying. Her teachers hadn’t been particularly understanding or patient, and as a result Emma had spent much of her adolescence feeling hopelessly stupid. Then she’d met Neal and dropped out of school at 17, naively believing his promises that they would make their fortunes together. It wasn't until three years later that she finally managed to get away from that relationship and earn her GED. By then she had learned not only that she was far from stupid, but that education, _not_ a man, was the key to having control over her future. So she’d enrolled in the local community college, working as a bail bondsperson to pay the tuition, and managed to finish her associate’s degree in two years. With a strong recommendation from her community college professor, she had transferred to SUNY Purchase, finally earning her BA in Psychology after making the gruelling drive upstate three times a week for another three years, fitting it in somehow around catching bail jumpers. Emma didn’t think she’d managed one solid night’s sleep until she’d graduated.

Armed with her hard won degree Emma had finally been able to get out of bail bonds, landing a job with a top notch firm of private investigators. It was a job she was good at, and one she’d enjoyed very much for a few years —still did sometimes— though all the broken marriages and domestic violence she’d witnessed had soon taken their toll and she’d found herself longing to do something _good_ with her life. Something wholesome.

Then, three years ago, Emma had begun volunteering at the women’s shelter, and it was there that she had found her real calling. Helping survivors of domestic violence rebuild their sense of self-worth and find their path in life gave her a purpose and fulfilment that hunting down cheating spouses had never offered. And she was damned good at it. The shelter’s director had been encouraging her for ages to get her MSW so that he could hire her for real as a full-time counsellor, but Emma had hesitated, unsure about whether she could handle graduate work. He had finally convinced her by turning her own arguments against her.

“You are smart and your ideas have value,” he’d told her, exactly what she always told the women at the shelter. “You can do anything you want, you just have to go for it.”

That was all it had taken. Emma was done with second-guessing herself and determined to succeed. She wanted to help abused women, and if a master's degree was what it took to do that, then Emma would get a goddamn master's degree.

She was halfway through the form when she started to feel a bit chilly and looked around for the sweater she usually kept on the back of the sofa. It wasn’t there.

“Oh, crap, I must have left it in the washing machine!” she cried, remembering that she’d tossed it in the wash late last night, intending to hang it up to dry before she left for the shelter that morning.

“Crap, crap, crap,” said Emma, “No one better have taken it out of the machine and thrown it on the floor!” Hurriedly, she raced to her door and darted through it, only to crash headlong into Killian Jones coming out of his own apartment.

“Oof!” she grunted, bouncing off him and starting to fall, but before she could react he had caught her up in his _very strong_ arms and pulled her into his chest.

“Whoa, there, Swan,” he said, his deep voice rumbling in her ear. “Where’s the fire?”

Emma couldn’t answer, could barely think, her senses under assault from all directions. She felt the smooth fabric of his shirt under her cheek and his chest hair tickling her nose as she breathed in the heady blend of some subtle, spicy cologne and _him,_ his own natural scent rich and intoxicating. She could hear his heart beating rapidly under her ear with the vibrations of his voice still ringing in it, and she could feel the muscles in his back, hard and flexing under her hands. It was all too much, and suddenly she was overwhelmed by _wanting_ him, the heady desire that was always present when she saw him stronger than ever now that he was so close. She wanted to drag his mouth to hers and kiss him senseless, to twine herself around him and beg him to fuck her, to ease the ache that ignited low in her belly whenever she laid eyes on him. Grasping desperately for her sanity, Emma tried to remember why she could not give in to this, however badly she wanted to. He had too much power over her already. If she let him get any closer, he would destroy her. Wrenching herself from his arms, she shoved him roughly away and glared, her eyes shooting hatred at him, ready to hiss and spit and fight. 

She opened her mouth to tear into him, but before she could he took a step back and held up his hands, his expression open and conciliatory.

“Now, love, before you start, kindly recall that _you_ ran into _me_ ,” he said in a tone designed to soothe and placate. “I merely prevented you from landing on your lovely arse in an undignified heap.”

Emma closed her mouth, realising he was right, though it did little to calm her roiling emotions. She closed her eyes and took several deep, calming breaths before daring to look at him again.

The sight that met her eyes was… unexpected. Emma blinked rapidly several times and her mouth fell open again, this time in shock. _What the hell?!?_ she thought.

He was dressed almost identically to how he always was, in jeans and a button down shirt, except he had a worn leather satchel slung over his shoulder and in place of his standard black leather jacket he had on… a _tweed_ one? With brown suede patches on the elbows, for the love of Pete. And… were those _glasses_ in his breast pocket? Dear gods, thought Emma. He looked like every coed’s fantasy of a sexy college professor. What the _fuck_ was he up to?

Her eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?” she asked, suspicion lacing her voice. 

Something shuttered in his eyes, making them impossible to read. He smirked at her, raising his eyebrow in that way he had that never failed to send heat pulsing through her belly.

“That is hardly your concern, Swan,” he replied. “And I am running late, so if you wouldn’t mind…” he indicted the elevator door.

Emma hesitated for a moment, then turned on her heel. “I’ll take the stairs,” she said over her shoulder, and marched off.

“As you wish, love,” he called after her, his voice mocking and faintly amused.

 

*.*.*.

 

Killian boarded the elevator, and once the doors were safely closed he ran a shaking hand through his hair and barely restrained himself from punching the wall. He could still feel the imprint of Emma’s body all along the length of his, her soft, round breasts pressed into his chest, her hair tickling his chin, their hips perfectly aligned. She smelled amazing, like coconuts and sunshine, and he’d wanted to devour her, to tear off her clothes and bury his face between her breasts, to fuck her against the door of her apartment and make her moan his name, then scream it in ecstasy as she came. Jaw clenched, he glared down at the rock solid erection pressing insistently against the fly of his jeans.

“Goddamn it,” he growled, “Just what the bloody fuck am I meant to do with this?”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double line breaks with no *. *. *. indicate time or POV change.

Killian’s Sunday afternoon job usually left him feeling light and happy, but when he got home that evening his dark mood was still very much in effect. His earlier encounter with Emma had left him in a _very_ uncomfortable and surprisingly persistent position. He’d limped the three blocks to the subway station with his satchel held gingerly in front of him, then stood facing the corner of the car thinking about football for fully ten minutes before his erection finally subsided.

“Thank fuck I don’t have to go to the pub this evening,” he muttered, dropping his satchel on the floor and heading straight for the rum bottle. He didn’t like drinking on a Sunday evening—he had a Monday morning class that he needed to be sharp for— but tonight circumstances seemed to demand it.

He wondered how much he’d have to drink to blot out the memory of Emma Swan in his arms, her brief sojourn there somehow sufficient to obliterate every fantasy he’d ever had of her— the reality was so vastly superior.

He doubted there was enough alcohol in the world to make him forget it.

He closed his eyes, savouring the memory of the pure bliss he’d felt holding her even for that brief moment, her usually tense body soft against him as he'd breathed her in, stroking his hand down the length of her hair before tangling his fingers in its wavy ends. He felt his cock hardening again, and reluctantly scrubbed the images from his brain. He was certain he’d be living off them for some time to come, but right now he couldn’t take another hard-on. He wasn’t in the mood to relieve it himself and obviously there was no chance of Emma assisting—

“Enough!” he growled, slamming his empty glass down on the kitchen counter and grabbing the bottle to refill it. The bottle was nearly empty. _Well isn’t that fucking typical_ , he thought.

Wearily, he took out his phone and scrolled through the notifications. There was a message from Will in their British expats WhatsApp group, asking if anyone was up for a drink. Killian replied that he was going to have a quiet night in, and settled down on the sofa, the last of his rum in hand.

Thirty minutes later, there was a knock on his door. Surprised, he got up and peered through the peephole, his face breaking into a grin as he saw who was on the other side. Eagerly, he pulled the door open.

Standing before him was a tall brunette in skinny jeans and a tight leather jacket, her curly hair tumbling down her back. In her hand she brandished a full bottle of Killian’s favourite rum.

“Milah,” he said fondly, “how do you always know?”

“I saw your message on the group chat, it sounded like you were moping. I came to cheer you up.”

If anyone could manage that, it was her, thought Killian. He stepped back, gesturing for her to enter. 

“Come in, love, and don’t forget the bottle.”

“As if I would,” she retorted, sashaying into his apartment and handing him the rum before heading into the kitchen to hunt up a glass. Killian returned to the sofa, knowing she could manage on her own. She knew his place well.

She returned a few moments later, settling onto the sofa next to him as he poured them both a drink.

“So what’s troubling you?” she asked, after a moment of companionable silence. “Is it the princess again?”

“Don’t call her that,” said Killian, but the rebuke was mild. He knew that Milah genuinely liked Emma, having met her first at the women’s shelter before she’d ever met Killian. In fact, Emma had been indirectly responsible for Milah and Killian meeting at all.

 

It had been about a year and a half ago, during one of their Sunday morning encounters. Instead of sneering at him, Emma had ventured a tentative question.

“So, uh, Killian, I was wondering. Have you ever been to Swindon?” Her voice was casual, but he could tell that the question was important.

“Swindon? I should bloody well hope not. Why would anyone go to Swindon?”

“I don’t know do I? It’s just, there’s a new woman at the shelter, and she’s originally from Swindon.”

Emma clearly wanted to talk about this, and Killian longed to listen, but he knew that if he showed too much interest she would withdraw. Though his curiosity was definitely piqued, he managed to keep his expression neutral, his voice slightly bored.

“Indeed?”

“Yeah. Her husband made her move here about five years ago so he could start a business. He did a real number on her. Emotional abuse for years, isolating her, not letting her have any friends. Then a week ago he accused her of cheating on him and tried to kill her. She just managed to escape and made it to the shelter, but she doesn’t know a soul here and is so far from home,” Emma concluded, shooting him a significant look.

Killian’s mind was racing, but he shrugged disinterestedly. “Well, I wouldn’t worry, Swan. The British expat community is pretty strong here, she’ll meet some friends eventually.”

Emma glared at him, clearly disgusted by his lack of concern. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said coldly, and left.

The next day when he knew Emma was at work, Killian stopped by the shelter and asked to meet the woman from Swindon. They’d hit it off immediately. Despite a nine year age difference, they had a lot of interests in common and the conversation had flowed freely. Killian discovered that Milah had experience as a waitress and helped her get a job in the pub where he worked. He’d introduced her to his friends and made a point of including her in their gatherings. She was the kind of woman who could hold her own in a group of men, and she had fit right in. A month later, she was able to move out of the shelter and into her own place— just a small room above the pub but it was hers, and as she’d told Killian, it had been a long time since she’d had anything to truly call her own. Killian had helped her move and given her a framed print of a 17th century map of Manhattan as a housewarming gift. Old maps were one of the interests they shared.

Milah was Killian’s best friend, and he loved her as such. She was the only one of his friends who knew about his feelings for Emma. The night she’d moved in to her new place they had been sitting at her table sharing a beer, and Killian had finally broached the subject that had been on his mind for some time.

“Listen, Milah, could you do me a favour?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Would you mind not telling Emma about this?”

“About what?”

“About… this,” he gestured around them. “About me helping you with the job and the move.”

“Why on earth not?”

“I’d just rather she didn’t know.” He stared fixedly at his beer bottle for a moment, before looking up. She speared him with a probing stare that missed nothing, and the silence stretched on. Finally, she spoke.

“So, it’s like that, is it?”

Killian saw no point in lying, she already knew the answer. “Aye, it’s like that.”

It made him sad, really. Milah clearly fancied him, and she was remarkable —gorgeous, tough, adventurous, able to match him drink for drink and quip for quip. If he had met her in what he thought of as his life B.E. —Before Emma Swan had ruined him for all other women— she would have been exactly his style.

Nevertheless, he was grateful for Milah and for their friendship, and glad that in a city of eight million people they had somehow managed to find each other.

 

Now, Milah sat next to him on his sofa, a glass of rum in her hand, her bare feet propped on his coffee table.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“You wanna get shit-faced and watch porn?”

He laughed. Milah always managed to lift his spirits. “I have a ten o’clock class tomorrow.”

“All right then, you wanna get mildly sloshed and watch a movie?”

“That sounds perfect, love.”

 

*.*.*.

 

About halfway through _Pirates of the Caribbean_ , there was a knock on Killian’s door. He and Milah exchanged surprised looks.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked.

“Definitely not, it’s past ten.”

The knock came again, and then a hesitant voice.

“KIllian? It’s Emma Swan. I’m sorry I know it’s late, but if you’re awake could you open the door?”

Killian’s eyes widened in panic. “She can’t see you here,” he hissed at Milah. “She doesn’t know I know you. You have to hide!”

“Hide?” Milah hissed back. “I am a forty-three year old woman, I’m not going to hide behind the sofa like a bloody teenager.”

“Go into the kitchen, then. Please, Milah.”

“All right,” she grumbled, and stalked from the room.

Killian hurried to the door, ran his hands quickly through his hair, put on a bored expression, and opened it. Emma stood on the other side wearing worn sweats and a white tank top that cupped her breasts in a way he had to force himself not to think about. Her hair was in a ponytail and she wore no makeup. Without her usual boots she was noticeably shorter, forcing her to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. She gave him a little half-smile and Killian felt as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs.

 _Gods, she’s beautiful_.

With effort, he managed to maintain his composure. “This is unexpected, Swan,” he drawled. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

 _Nice cliché, gobshite_ , he thought to himself. _Smooth_.

Emma’s face was calm, but her eyes betrayed her nerves. “I just…” she began, “I — well…”

Killian raised his eyebrow and leaned against the doorframe, thumb hooked in the waistband of his jeans.

“Spit it out, love,” he taunted.

Anger flashed in her eyes. “Look, I’m trying to apologise,” she snapped. “For running into you this afternoon. And for shoving you.”

Killian was genuinely surprised, so much that he forgot to put on a front. “Think nothing of it,” he said. “It was just an accident.”

“I just… didn’t want you to make a thing of it.”

“Why on earth would I ‘make a thing’ of you running into me?”

“Well, I just— you sometimes—”

Killian understood. _Because I sometimes taunt you about little things you do. Because I’m an arsehole. Because getting a rise out of you is the only way to ensure you’ll speak to me._

“Swan, until you brought it up a moment ago, I had forgotten the incident entirely.” _Liar._ “I give you my word never to mention it again.”

He could tell from the look on her face that she wanted to make a snarky comment about the value of his word, but refrained.

“Thank you,” she said instead, smiling in a way that pierced him clear to his soul.

Suddenly he was exhausted, tired of subterfuge, tired of hiding his feelings, tired of trying to convince himself that he could be content with scraps of negative attention from her. He longed for something honest, something real. If he knew Emma Swan —and Killian was quite certain that he did— she would run a mile if he revealed even a tiny scrap of what he felt for her, but in that moment, he didn’t care.

He shifted his weight, standing up straight and looking into her eyes. Then he smiled back at her, a genuine, warm smile, the kind he wished he could give her every day for the rest of his life.

“You’re welcome, Emma,” he said softly.

Her breath caught and heat flashed in her eyes. The air between them was suddenly tense and electric, and Killian thought for a brief moment that she might lean forward and… but then she was stepping away, turning back towards her open door.

“Okay. Great. Well, goodnight, Jones,” she said.

“Goodnight, Swan.”

He shut the door, the smile still on his face.

“Hmmmmm.”

He turned to see Milah standing in the kitchen doorway.

“That was quite a performance,” she said. “At least until the end. So the princess really doesn’t know how you feel?”

“She does not.”

“You going to tell her?”

“No.”

“You can’t win her if she doesn’t know you’re in the game, mate.”

“I don’t intend to ‘win her,’” he snapped, “she’s not a prize. And anyway, she hates me. Pursuing women who can’t stand the sight of you is extremely bad form.”

Milah recalled her conversations with Emma, the look on the other woman’s face when she spoke of her British neighbour, the blatantly obvious sexual tension between the two of them just now. She shook her head. For such an intelligent man, Killian could be a real idiot at times. “She doesn’t hate you.”

“We are talking about Emma Swan, aren’t we, love? Green eyed blonde, lives across the hall? Spits venom every time she talks to me?”

“That’s her. She doesn’t hate you. If you ask me, she’s trying very hard not to like you.”

Killian sighed. “ _Mil_ -ah…” he said.

“ _Kill_ -i-an…” she replied mockingly.

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just finish the movie.”

 

*.*.*.

 

_Six weeks later_

The envelope was waiting for Emma when she got home from work. Up to that point, it had been a perfectly normal Tuesday. Of course, she would be lying if she said that there hadn’t been the thought flickering at the back of her mind, the knowledge that she could be receiving the decision on her MSW application any day now, but she had determinedly forced it to stay at the back. She had work to concentrate on, and thinking about the application would just make her crazy.

On reflection, she may not have been as successful at burying her anticipation as she’d hoped. Her colleagues had certainly seemed to find something odd —and amusing— about her that afternoon.

“How about this weather?” asked David Nolan, her friend and sometimes partner, as he returned from a stakeout at about four p.m.

“Hmmm?” said Emma, not looking up from her computer screen. “Oh, yeah, it’s perfect. Great day.”

Rain was pouring down outside, thunder rumbling in the distance. Meteorologists had been predicting the “storm of the century” for the past week. David was soaked to the skin, his hair plastered to his forehead, water dripping off his nose. He looked at Emma in astonishment. She didn’t notice.

“Love this weather,” murmured Emma absently.

David felt a chuckle rise in his throat, but stifled it. “Yeah, me too. Wanna go have lunch in the park?” he asked.

“What? Oh, that’d be great but I have stuff to do, just gonna have a sandwich at my desk. Another time.”

“The next time we have great weather like this, maybe?”

“Mmm-hmmm, yeah, then.”

David gave up, and howled with laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Emma protested, finally giving him her full attention.

“Emma, it’s raining cats and dogs out there. And it’s well past lunchtime. Did you even notice?”

She looked disgruntled. “I’ve been busy.”

“Sure,” he said, still chuckling. Then he patted her on the back. “You’ll get in, you know. To NYU.”

“Yeah, I’m not thinking about that right now, I have work to do.”

“Of course. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

 

But now, here was the envelope. “NYU Silver School of Social Work” it said in the upper corner. Emma’s palms were sweating and her heartbeat was thundering in her ears. Closing her eyes, she ripped it open and removed the piece of paper from within, unfolding it in front of her. Slowly, she opened her eyes until the blurry black markings on the page resolved into a legible form.

_Dear Ms Swan, it is my pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted…_

“YES!” shrieked Emma, throwing her hands in the air and doing a dance of joy. “YES, YES, _YES_!”

There was a blinding flash as lightning rent the sky, then everything plunged into darkness.

 

An hour later, Emma had just finished putting out and lighting all the candles she had in the apartment. Which was quite a few, she realised in consternation, looking around her at the multitude of flickering lights. In fact, she may have a bit of a candle habit.

 _Oh well_ , she shrugged, _you can't have too many candles in a blackout_.

Emma had always loved thunderstorms. Even when she was small, they hadn’t frightened her. Instead, she felt exhilarated and slightly wild, wanting to run outside and dance naked in the rain, and call the lighting down to her.

 _Too bad that kind of thing would definitely be frowned upon, even in the weird-ass business that is Washington Square Park_ , she thought wryly, and instead headed for the kitchen to make some hot chocolate, thanking fate that she had a gas stove that could be lit with a match. In the candlelight she failed to notice her bag lying on the floor where she had dropped it in her excitement about the acceptance letter. Her foot caught in the handle of the bag and she went flying, letting out a shriek of alarm as she fell.

Moments later, there was pounding at her door.

“Swan? SWAN! I heard screaming. Are you all right? Answer me!”

It was Killian’s voice.

Emma picked herself up off the floor and opened the door. Killian was leaning against the doorframe, his handsome face creased in worry, his hair damp, raindrops sparkling in his eyelashes, his blue gaze intense. Emma felt her breath catch, and emboldened by the exhilaration of the storm and her letter, she let her eyes caress his features, not even bothering to pretend she wasn’t checking him out.

“Relax, Jones, I’m fine. Nothing hurt but my dignity. I tripped over my bag. Couldn’t see it.” She flashed him a quick smile.

The worry on his face relaxed into relief, followed quickly by amusement as his eyes swept the room behind her, taking in the impressive array of candles.

“I find that difficult to believe, love. It’s blazing like Bonfire Night in here.”

“Emma chuckled. “Yeah, I might have a bit of a candle addiction.”

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to let me borrow one or two. I’ve none at mine, and I don’t really fancy sitting in the dark.”

Emma stepped back, opening the door wider and gesturing for him to enter. “Sure. Come on in, let me just move my bag and then I’ll see if I can rustle up a stub or two for you,” she joked.

Killian blinked in astonishment, then stepped inside somewhat warily.

She shut the door behind him, then strolled away to pick up her bag and set it on a side table, swaying her hips a bit more than was strictly necessary, and bending slowly at the waist, perhaps somewhat deeper than she needed to reach the bag. She turned to find him watching her, his eyebrow quirked in mild confusion, but with definite interest in his eyes. Lightning cracked outside and Emma felt the surge of energy clear to her toes. The storm had her in its clutches now, and she wanted to do something reckless.

Killian Jones was pretty damn reckless.

“Hey, I was just about to make a cup of hot chocolate, you want some?” she asked, trying to sound offhanded, enjoying the surprise that flitted across his face.

“Er, sure, love. Cheers,” he said.

She nodded, and gestured to the sofa. “Sit down, I’ll be right there.”

 

Killian went into the living room and sat down gingerly. The room was bright and warm, like its occupant, strewn with comfortable furniture and colourful cushions, potted plants on the windowsills, framed art prints on the walls. She seemed to have a thing for the Pre-Raphaelites, Killian noted. Interesting.

Emma returned to the living room a few moments later, bearing two steaming mugs. She sat down on the sofa, possibly slightly closer to him than he had expected, and handed one to him, taking a long sip of the other and sighing in enjoyment.

Killian looked at his drink, noting that there was a sprinkle of cinnamon atop the whipped cream. He took a sip. It was delicious.

“Hmmm, I’ve never tried cinnamon with chocolate before. I like it.”

Emma beamed with pleasure. “It’s my favourite,” she said, running her tongue along her upper lip to catch an errant speck of whipped cream, watching him as she did so.

The room suddenly felt hotter, the air much too close. Killian knew he would be hard as iron if he weren’t so baffled. This was definitely not like the Emma he knew. He looked closely at her, wondering momentarily if she’d been drugged, but her eyes were clear and sharp. She simply seemed to be buzzing with excitement and energy.

“What’s come over you, Swan?” he asked. “As enjoyable as it is to share a drink with you,this all seems rather out of character.”

“I’m just in a good mood.”

“Any particular reason?” he pressed. She clearly had something she wanted to share.

“I applied to NYU,” she burst out suddenly, the words pouring from her. “To the Master of Social Work program. So I can be a full time counsellor at the shelter. I got the acceptance letter today. I’ll start in the fall.”

 

Emma was half expecting him to tease or mock her, but instead he looked genuinely delighted, and oddly proud.

“That’s brilliant, Swan, congratulations!” he said.

She glowed at the praise. “Thanks. I was really worried that they wouldn’t want me. I don’t have the strongest academic record.”

“Perhaps not, but you have a gift for helping others, and I imagine that’s what was most important.”

Emma was taken aback, and strangely touched by the warmth in his voice. “Do you really think so? That I… have a gift, I mean.”

“Of course I do. This may surprise you to hear, love, but I’m actually quite observant, and I’ve seen how much you care about the women you counsel. It’s what you’re meant to be doing with your life, that much is evident.”

Warmth snaked through Emma, from the hot chocolate, she told herself, but she knew that it was more from the unexpected validation from this man whom she’d always seen as an adversary. He had kept his word, and in the six weeks since The Incident, as she had dubbed it in her thoughts, he had made no mention of the disturbingly intense embrace they had shared. Emma had been relieved, but also oddly disappointed. She knew he had been lying that evening when he claimed he had forgotten everything until she came to his door, but since then he'd given no hint that it had ever crossed his mind again. It had certainly crossed hers, many times, daily if she was honest, and nightly as well, causing her to awaken sweating in tangled sheets from dreams of what might have happened if she hadn’t pulled away. She wondered if he ever had similar dreams.

She pulled off her cardigan and draped it over the back of the sofa.

“Why don’t you take your jacket off, get comfortable?” she said casually. “It makes more sense for you to stay here for a while than to take a few candles and go home. You’d still basically be sitting in the dark.”

He looked a bit wary, but did as she asked, removing his leather jacket and placing it next to her cardigan before unbuttoning and rolling up the sleeves of the shirt underneath. The shirt was dark blue with a faint paisley pattern, Emma noted. It brought out the blue of his eyes.

She slid slightly closer to him on the sofa, trying not to be obvious about it.“Hey, I meant to ask. Why are you home, anyway? Shouldn’t you be at the pub?”

He gestured at the candlelit darkness around them. “Power’s out all over the city, love. They reckon that the storm knocked out a huge section of the grid, it likely won’t be up again until tomorrow. Jack decided to shut the pub early and send us all home. Not much point in us sitting around in the dark watching the beer get warm.”

“I thought the Brits liked warm beer,” she said archly.

He shot her an exaggeratedly hurt look. “Now, Swan, let’s not start trafficking in cheap stereotypes, or I’ll be forced to make some incisive remarks about the quality —or lack thereof— of what you Yanks humorously call beer.”

She giggled. "'Humorously?'"

"You've tasted the stuff. You’re telling me it's not meant to be a joke?”

“Maybe we just like it.”

“You like drinking piss-flavoured water? What a very odd nation you are.”

“At least it’s icy cold piss-flavoured water.”

He laughed, the sound rumbling up from his belly, crinkling the corners of his eyes and making them sparkle. Emma felt the tingly heat grow in her own belly, rising up to overwhelm her, the pull of attraction she always felt towards him magnified by her elated mood and by this warm, teasing side of him she’d never seen before, by the thrill of the storm beating outside, the rain lashing at the windows, the intimacy of the candlelight. She felt hot and excited and reckless and _just this once_ she wanted to throw caution to the winds and do something crazy and irresponsible purely because it felt good. Her eyes dropped to his lips, where laughter still lingered. She wanted to kiss it away, to feel his lips and his tongue on hers, to see if he tasted as good as he smelled, if the reality of him could live up to her dreams.

So she did.

She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and yanked his mouth to hers, fusing their lips together. She could feel his astonishment and hesitation but she was insistent, clinging tightly to his shirt and slanting her mouth across his, sucking gently on his bottom lip as she pulled back just enough to whisper “Are you going to kiss me back, or what?”

The length of a heartbeat stretched out to eternity as Emma waited for his response, not daring to think what she’d do if he rebuffed her. Fortunately, she didn’t have to find out.

Killian plunged one hand into her hair, the other gently cupping her face, and brought their lips together once again. This time there was no hesitation— he took full control of the kiss, nudging her lips apart and shifting the angle of their mouths to kiss her deeply, his tongue caressing hers, sending sensation shivering through her body, her every nerve ending set alight. He tasted of her chocolate and cinnamon, chased with the rum and spice that was _him_. Emma had never known anything so delicious and she couldn’t get enough, wanted _more_. His mouth moved over hers softly yet with a fierce intensity, wringing pleasure from every cell, leaving her wet and aching and desperate. She whimpered, leaning closer, longing to melt against him and into him, and Killian let out a moan that was almost a growl, breaking the kiss abruptly but dropping his forehead to lean against hers, needing to catch his breath but unable to break the contact between them completely. Emma realised that his hands were still in her hair and on her face. How was it possible that he could make her feel like this when he’d barely even touched her? She felt dazed and wanton, her core already heavy with desire and dripping wet, and she thought wildly that if she didn’t feel him inside her soon she might actually die.

Killian pulled back to meet her gaze, his breathing ragged and his eyes almost black.

“What do you want, Swan?” he panted.

Emma was so aroused she barely knew her own name, but of one thing she was entirely certain.

“I want _you_ ,” she whispered, releasing his shirt collar to run her hands up his chest and twine her arms tightly around his neck. “I want you to fuck me, Killian. Now. _Please_.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may drift slightly from M to E, I'm not actually sure where the cutoff is between them. You've been warned ;)

Killian didn’t entirely like her use of the word ‘fuck’. Although he greatly appreciated its fine qualities as a word, the scholar in him approving of its solid Middle English heritage and its immense usefulness in all parts of speech, as the expression of a concept, namely the concept of all the things he wanted to do to Emma Swan, it fell sadly short. _Fuck_ was what he did with the others, the women who looked rather like her but weren’t her, the stand-ins that he used to take the edge off his desperate longing for her. He didn’t want to _fuck_ Emma, he wanted to treasure her, worship her, pleasure her endlessly, and yes, to bury himself deep within her and ride her until they both found oblivion. _Fuck_ sounded so base and sordid against his lovesick rhapsodising.

Yet as her aching plea resonated through his whole body, her voice and her eyes proclaiming its sincerity, he found he simply did not have the strength to refuse.

_Sod it_ , he thought, _I’ll take what I can get_.

After all, it wasn’t every day a man’s wildest dreams came true, even if only partially.

Growling deep in the back of his throat, he slid his hands down her body and cupped her ass, dragging her forwards to straddle his lap, letting her feel his erection against her core as he captured her lips again. He kissed her with his whole mouth, deep and soft and wet, until he was breathless and dizzy with pleasure, so hard he feared he may explode, and she was writhing and moaning in his lap, grinding her hips into his and fisting her hands in his hair as she kissed him back with equal fervour. He slid his hands beneath her blouse, finding the front clasp of her bra and flicking it open with a deft twist of his fingers, pushing it aside to cup her breasts in his hands, revelling in their weight and softness, circling her nipples lightly with his thumbs. Emma made a helpless, keening noise and bucked her hips against his and he nearly came.

He tore his mouth from hers, panting, trying desperately to corral his stampeding passions. They needed to slow this down, or he was going to disgrace himself.

“Emma,” he whispered, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. “Emma, look at me.” Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and he caught his breath. She looked utterly wrecked, cheeks flushed and lips swollen, eyes glazed with lust. He had never seen anything so beautiful, could not believe that she was here, with him, that _he_ had put that look on her face.

“Hmmmm?” she hummed dazedly, as she leaned in to kiss him again.

“No, love, listen…” he began, evading her, trying to catch her drifting attention. Denied his lips, she went for his neck instead, licking and nipping at his pulse point. He moaned, hips thrusting involuntarily, before cupping her face in his hands and pulling her away, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“Emma, love, focus,” he said hoarsely. “Where’s the bedroom?”

“Bedroom?” Her voice was unsteady.

“Aye, love, the bedroom. The one with the bed.”

“We’re fine here—”

He cut her off. “Bedroom, Swan,” he growled. He’d be damned if he was going to waste his one chance to sleep with Emma on a quickie on the sofa. He would remember this night for the rest of his life, and he intended to make certain that she did too.

“Down the hall, second door on the right.”

“Wrap your legs around my waist, love.” She complied, and he stood up, lifting her along with him, and headed for the hallway. Emma hummed in appreciation of this show of strength, squeezing her thighs tightly around him and kissing him again, her lips and tongue demanding. He stumbled slightly and turned, slamming her back into the hallway wall. She moaned in approval and he let himself get lost in her for a moment, responding in kind to her fervent kiss, bringing his hands up to tease her breasts again as hers gripped his collar and tore his shirt open, scattering buttons everywhere, before she sank her fingers into the thick hair on his chest. He did the same to her blouse, the delicate fabric giving way easily under his frantic hands, then wrenched his mouth from hers to pull the tattered scraps from her body and gaze down at her naked breasts. They were just as perfect as he’d imagined, round and full with dusky rose nipples currently hard enough to cut glass. With an almost feral growl, he leaned down to take one in his mouth, caressing it with his tongue and nipping lightly with his teeth, sucking gently to increase the sensation. Emma’s breath was coming in short, sharp pants, her hips pumping helplessly. She grabbed fistfuls of his hair and pulled him off her breast, kissing him hard for a moment before tearing her mouth away and moaning into his ear. “Here. Now.”

He shook his head. “No. Bedroom.” Not on the sofa, not against the wall. He would have her in the bloody bed where he could enjoy her properly. 

“Killian, please…” she begged, and _gods_ , he hadn’t thought he could be any more aroused, but the desperate note in her voice shot straight to his cock and he _ached_ with lust. He took her mouth again, kissing her almost frantically as he pushed them away from the wall and staggered to the end of the hallway, opening her bedroom door and all but falling through it.

Fortunately, it was a small room and a big bed.

Killian would have been amused to note that she had candles burning in here as well, except all of his mental focus was otherwise engaged.

They tumbled onto the bed and rolled until she was atop him, straddling his hips as she had on the sofa, only here there was far more room. Emma spread her legs as wide as they could go, dragging her core along the length of his erection, the fabric of their jeans creating a delicious friction. She purred, raking her fingers through his chest hair as she slid her hands downward, reaching for the button on his jeans. He wanted to let her keep going, feel her hand around him, stroking him, but he was _so close_ , **too** close, and he needed this to last.

He pushed her off him, flipping her onto her back and capturing her wrists in his left hand, pinning her arms above her head. “Not so fast, darling,” he growled. “You first.”

She struggled for a moment, whimpering in protest, and he waited, letting the air cool between them, allowing them both to regain some control. Her eyes came to rest on his face, more focused now that her desperate ardor had abated somewhat, but still intense and aching. Slowly, he stroked his right hand down her body, watching her watch him, holding her gaze as he popped open the button on her jeans and tugged the zipper down, sliding his hand between her legs and finding her hot and dripping beneath his fingers.

“So wet, Swan,” he purred, stroking through the slick heat, making her quiver, “I approve.” She moaned as he slipped a finger inside her, straining to free her hands, and he wished mightily for a pair of handcuffs or at the very least a necktie. Pulling his hand from between her legs, he kept his eyes locked to hers and slowly licked his fingertips, watching as her eyes widened with frustrated lust. “You’re delicious, Emma,” he said, his voice rough and strained, “and I intend to spread your lovely legs wide and taste you properly. But as I do, you are to keep your hands exactly where they are right now. If you move them, I will stop what I am doing. Do you understand?”

The look she gave him was fierce, almost angry, but she nodded her agreement.

He released her hands and she immediately fisted them into the bedspread, tightening her grip as he kissed down her neck and over her chest and belly, stopping just above her open jeans. Emma moaned in protest, and he chuckled, stroking his hands down her sides then over her hips, pulling her jeans and panties slowly down her legs. Once they were over her knees, she kicked and wriggled free of them, spreading her legs wide and arching her back. He knelt on the floor, pausing for a moment to enjoy the view, until she snapped at him, voice breathless yet demanding. “Any fucking time now, Killian.”

“As you wish, love,” he replied, and dived in.

 

*.*.*.

Emma’s eyes rolled back in her head as she felt Killian’s tongue, warm and ever so slightlyrough on her delicate flesh. He licked her slowly, thoroughly, his tongue dipping inside her before swirling around her clit and teasing her, dancing so close to where she wanted it most but never quite touching it.

She longed to reach down and stroke her hands through his hair, but she didn’t dare move them. She knew he meant it when he said he’d stop if she did, and she couldn’t bear for this to end. It was already the best sex of her life, and he was still wearing most of his clothes.

When the tip of his tongue finally — _finally_ — came to rest on her sensitive nub, laving it gently with slight pressure, she had to bite back a scream, her hips thrusting up to meet him, chasing the harder, rougher sensations she sought.

He hummed appreciatively, increasing the pressure, sucking her clit into his mouth before raking his teeth lightly across it, following with a rough swipe of his tongue. Emma was frantic now, unable to control the moans that were almost sobs or the jerky motion of her hips. Needing to see him, she lifted her head, careful not to remove her hands from the bedspread, and looked down, her heart clenching at the sight of him buried between her thighs.

He seemed to sense her eyes on him and he looked up at her through his lashes, his gaze hot and intent. “You taste so bloody good, Emma,” he growled, the vibrations of his voice and his breath on her sending sensation shooting to her core. “I could come from this alone.” 

“Don’t you dare,” she rasped, barely able to get the words out.

He quirked an eyebrow in amusement, but said nothing, instead applying his mouth to the task of making _her_ come, licking and sucking and nipping until stars exploded behind her eyes and she screamed his name.

When she came back to herself, he was on his feet, shrugging out of his ruined shirt and kicking off his boots. She devoured him with her eyes, taking in the lean muscles, the smooth skin, the thick hair. He was surprisingly toned for a man who lived such a debauched life, she mused. His hands went to the button of his jeans, his movements slowing as he noticed her watching him. He undid the button and the zipper, then hooked his thumbs through the waistband and slowly dragged it downwards, revealing inch by inch his taut abdomen and the dark trail of hair that led to his cock. Emma’s breathing was roughening again, coming fast and uneven as she waited to see him fully revealed. When he finally sprang free of the constricting denim, she nearly laughed.

_Of course_ , she thought, _of course he’s that big._ _He_ would _be, the bastard_.

He was grinning at her as if he knew what she was thinking. _He probably does._

“See something you like, Swan?” he drawled, his voice a sensuous caress that shivered over her skin. _Yeah, he definitely does_.

“Just get down here, Jones, and bring your massive cock, if you can carry it.”

He laughed delightedly at her jibe, and knelt between her sprawled legs, rubbing the massive cock in question through her folds, where moisture was already flowing again. She moaned as he trailed kisses up her body, lavishing attention on each nipple in turn, before capturing her mouth and kissing her deeply. She could taste herself on his tongue, and it drove her wild.

“Killian,” she moaned, “I want to touch you.”

Her hands were still clutching the bedspread, where he’d told her to leave them. His eyes darkened.

“Touch me then, love,” he said.

Emma didn’t need to be asked twice. She brought her hands up from the bed, intending to go straight for the goods, but found her attention drawn to the dark hair falling across his forehead. Slowly she reached up and brushed it back, enjoying how the silky strands felt between her fingers, noting how his breath caught at the gentleness of her touch, then stroked her hand down his cheek and across the stubble on his cut jawline.

“Your beard has some red in it,” she whispered.

His eyes were blazing with something she couldn’t name.“Aye,” he replied hoarsely, forcing the words out. “It’s downright ginger if I let it grow too long.”

The image of him with a bright orange beard made her grin, and his mouth quirked up as well. She stroked her thumb down his cheekbone, touching the crinkles at the corner of his eye, then extended her exploration to his body, running her hands across his shoulders and down his arms. His skin was smooth and hot, the muscles hard beneath it. She flexed her fingers against his biceps, then ran them back up his arms and onto his chest, sifting them through the thick hair that covered it, marvelling at its softness.

“Why don’t you wax this?” she inquired.

He somehow managed to look both intensely turned on and deeply affronted. “Why the bloody hell would I?”

She laughed. “I’m glad you don’t, I like it.” She had wanted to run her hands through it since the first moment she met him.

She kept one hand on his chest, but let the other slide lower, down his abs, following the smooth trail of dark hair before finally closing around his cock.

He sucked in his breath sharply through his teeth, closing his eyes, a muscle ticking in his jaw. She tightened her grip and stroked her hand up and down the shaft, enjoying how thick and hot and hard it was, and the choked noises he made and the wrecked look on his face. “Fuck, Emma,” he moaned.

She was more than ready. “Yeah, let’s do that.” She shifted her hips upwards, bringing the head of his cock to her entrance. “I want to feel you inside me. Now. No more arguing.”

He made a strangled noise in his throat and pushed forward, entering her in one smooth thrust, the angle of her hips and the slickness of her passage allowing him to fill her completely the first time. _Finally,_ she thought, _fucking finally_. She felt stretched and full and fabulous, and oddly _whole_ , and she felt his groan of pleasure resonate through her, clear to the tips of her toes

_Finally_.

 

*.*.*.

 

Killian Jones loved women and he loved sex, and he had enjoyed quite a lot of both in his time. He flattered himself that he knew his way around women’s bodies, knew an impressive variety of ways to pleasure them and exactly what to get them to do to pleasure him. Yet nothing, in all the vastness of his experience, had prepared him for the feeling of being buried inside Emma Swan. It was mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting, and as he thrust into her wet heat, feeling her inner walls squeeze tightly around him, it occurred to him that the gods could strike him down right there and then and he would die blissfully happy. 

_The poets were right,_ he marvelled _. Turns out sex really is different when there are emotions involved. Who knew?_

Aside from the poets, obviously.

He was still for a moment, savouring the sensations, drinking in the sight of her beneath him, her head thrown back, hair spread out around her, face flushed, her red, swollen lips slightly open. Then she whimpered and shifted her hips and the thin thread of control he’d been clinging to finally snapped. He pulled out of her almost completely before plunging back in again, then again, again, again, thrusting deep, encouraged by the small, helpless moans she made deep in her throat. She wrapped her legs around him, digging her heels into his ass and her fingernails into his shoulders, urging him to go faster, and he gladly complied. Her breathing came in ragged pants, her hips thrusting up to meet him, and he could tell she was close.

“Oh, god, Killian,” she groaned, “More. Please.”

He ran his hand down her side and under her ass, adjusting her hips again, tilting her up to just the right angle for the head of his cock to hit the perfect spot inside her, while at the same time taking her mouth, hard, stroking her with his tongue as he did with his cock until she cried out, moaning into his mouth and convulsing around him as she came hard. He pulled back, watching her, continuing to thrust as he gritted his teeth, desperately fighting back his own orgasm. He wanted her to come at least once more before they were finished.

Grabbing her hips, he rolled them over until she was astride him once again, her hands braced against his chest as he stroked her clit with his thumb, drawing out her pleasure. With the other hand on her hip, he encouraged her to move, to continue the natural thrusting motion her hips made as she came. “That’s it, love,” he whispered, “Show me how you like it. Come once more for me.”

She began to rock back and forth, fingers clawing at his chest, the pressure building in her again as he stroked her. He thrust roughly up into her, matching her rhythm, revelling in the glorious sight of her riding him, and when she shattered for a third time he finally let himself go, and followed her into oblivion.

She collapsed against his chest and buried her face in the curve of his neck as he closed his arms tightly around her and buried his own face in her hair, stroking it gently with one hand. She hummed and snuggled closer, her arms snaking around him, and he thought his heart might burst with happiness. They lay entwined for several long moments, their breathing slowly evening out and the sweat drying from their skin. Emma sighed, her breath ghosting across his neck, and Killian realised she was nearly asleep. Gently, he nudged her off of him, their bodies detaching with a small sucking noise. She made an inarticulate sound of protest, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and twining her legs through his, as though she couldn’t bear not to feel his skin against hers. He tucked her close against his side, brushed the hair back from her face, and watched as she drifted off. When he was sure she was asleep, he caressed his lips across her skin, pressing gentle kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, and finally her lips.

“I love you, Emma,” he whispered, then curled himself around her and closed his eyes.

When he awoke, she was gone.

Her pillow was still warm beneath his hand, still smelling of her, though the apartment was silent. On the bedside table was a cooling cup of coffee and under the cup a note that shattered his heart.

 

_It was a one-time thing._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments, I'm really enjoying writing this fic and am so delighted that people are enjoying reading it! Keep them coming!

Killian lay alone in Emma’s bed for a moment, letting the pain wash over him in waves until he felt strong enough to stand. The impact of the note and Emma’s absence from the apartment was crippling. He thought back to the night before, when she had clung to him in the aftermath of what had, for him, been lovemaking. She had twined herself around him and fallen asleep in his arms, and he had —foolishly, it seemed— allowed himself to hope that such behaviour might signal a softening of her attitude to him. That she might actually let him in, get to know him, let him know her completely and freely as he longed to, rather than by cobbling together the dribs and drabs of information he’d managed to coax from her via two years of hallway encounters. Now that hope was cruelly dashed, leaving him feeling far worse than when he’d had no hope at all. 

With a bone-wrenching effort he dragged himself from the bed, retrieved his clothes, and went home, not bothering to dress first. He dropped the clothes on his floor and headed for the shower, standing in the cold spray for what felt like hours until its iciness began to numb his aching heart. He felt bleak and used. _Probably only fair_ , he thought, _karmic retribution for the way I’ve used the others._

He managed to drag on some clean clothes, then stood in the middle of his living room, wondering what to do. He was the sort of man who was rarely bored, able to fill his days with projects and research, or lose himself in a book for hours on end, but he couldn’t summon the motivation for any of those things. He realised that he needed to talk to someone, to try to sort through the confusion of his feelings and ease the burden of the burning agony in his chest by sharing it. Grabbing his jacket, he headed for the door, listening carefully at it before leaving, then deliberately bypassed the elevator for the stairs. He didn’t want to run into her on the way out.

Twenty minutes later, he knocked on Milah’s door. She opened it, looking surprised but pleased. “Oh, hey, Killian…” she began cheerfully, then saw his face. “What’s wrong?” He shook his head, unable to voice it. She put her arm around his shoulders. “Come in, love, sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

In another mood, Killian would have laughed. Tea, the British answer to everything from a stubbed toe to a stab wound. The idea of it was blessedly comforting. He sat on her sofa, staring at his hands as she bustled in the kitchen then placed the cup in front of him and hovered worriedly nearby, waiting for him to speak.

“I slept with Emma,” he said finally.

She didn’t look nearly as surprised as he had expected. “I see. When?”

“Last night.”

“Well… that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it was good. Better than good. Quite the best sex of my life, which, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, is saying something. It was… stunning. And, according to her, never to be repeated. She was gone before I woke up.” Pain roughened his voice.

Milah sat next to him and wrapped him in her arms, cradling his head on her shoulder. “Oh, love,” she said, “I’m so sorry.” 

“I don’t know what to do now, Milah, I don’t know how to go on. All I know is that I can’t, I _can’t_ go back to the way things were, to just living across the hall and snarking at her once a week, not now that I know what it feels like to touch her.”

“Maybe it won’t be like that.”

“How could it be otherwise? She’s always hated me, she only slept with me because she was feeling energetic and I was there. I’ll be lucky if she ever even looks at me again.”

“Killian, I really don’t think that Emma hates you. I told you before, she likes you, she’s just afraid to admit it. Don’t give up on her.”

He shook his head. “Please, Milah, not now,” he groaned, “Don’t give a man false hope when his heart is breaking. I just have to accept the reality of this and somehow learn to live with it. Help me figure out how to do that.”

She stroked his hair, like he was a child. “All right. I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

Killian sighed in relief, feeling her love and friendship wrap around him like a warm blanket. “I don’t suppose you’d let me crash here for a day or two. I really don’t want to go home.” Emma didn’t want to see him, and the least he could do was not impose his company upon her, even accidentally. Best if he stayed away until enough time had passed that she might feel comfortable running into him again.

Milah nodded. “Whatever you need, love.”

Killian and Milah sat on her sofa drinking tea and watching mindless daytime television until it was time for his shift at the pub. Milah wasn’t working that night, so she offered to go pick up some clothes and toiletries from his place. He accepted gratefully, not wishing to return there even just to grab some things.

He stayed at her place for five days, only returning home after his Sunday afternoon job. It was longer than he’d intended, but Milah’s support had propped him up so much that he hadn’t wanted to lose it. Now he stood in the middle of his living room again, clinging desperately to his hard-won composure. Knowing that Emma was so near and yet farther away than ever was tearing at his insides, bringing the emotions he’d carefully buried over the past few days bubbling up to the surface.

For the first time in almost thirty years, Killian wanted to cry. He wanted to curl into someone’s arms and sob, as he had last done at his mother’s funeral. He’d been six, and he had managed to swallow his tears through the whole of the long service, right up until he’d gone with Liam to view the body. The sight of his mother, looking like herself and yet completely different, the love he’d always seen on her face wiped away by death, had been too much for him. Fourteen-year-old Liam had carried him away, then held him on his lap and let him cry, glaring away anyone who’d tried to approach. Killian had sobbed into his brother’s shoulder until their father had grabbed him by the collar and dragged him from the church, cuffing him sharply with the back of his hand and knocking him to the ground.

“I’ll have no more of that, boy!” he’d snarled. “You conduct yourself right, or I’ll give you something to bloody cry about!”

Killian had never cried again.

And he wasn’t going to start now, he told himself firmly. He’d lost people he’d loved before and he’d survived. He would survive this too. Determinedly, he began to unpack his satchel and begin the arduous process of repairing his heart.

 

*.*.*.

 

Emma was angry. Possibly angrier than she had ever been. Angry at herself, at Killian, at the storm, at herself. Mostly at herself, if she was honest, at her stupidity and carelessness in jumping into bed with a near stranger the way she had. _We didn’t even use a condom!_ she thought furiously. It hadn’t once crossed her mind to use one. She had been so focused on him, so desperate to have him, that any thought of potential consequences had flown right out of her head. Pregnancy was unlikely as she had an IUD, but there were always diseases to worry about and who even _knew_ where Killian had been and what he may have picked up there.

Which brought her to Killian, and the source of her anger with him. She didn’t blame him for sleeping with her —she’d basically thrown herself at him, after all— but did he have to be so freaking _good_ at it? She’d been expecting a quick tumble on the sofa, something hard and satisfying to get him out of her system, which she could then proceed to forget all about. Instead she’d had the best night of her entire life.

She had come three times, for fuck’s sake. He had deliberately, intentionally, _maliciously_ ensured that she came not just once but three times. _Who the hell does that?_ she raged. No one had ever done that for her before.

Neal had barely cared if she came at all.

She didn’t think she’d ever forget it, the way he tasted and smelled and sounded, and how it felt to be filled and surrounded by him. Even now, weeks later, she often found herself drifting away into her memories of him, and worse imagining new scenarios, getting lost in fantasies of all the things she wanted him to do to her, the things she wanted to do to him. He was definitely nowhere near out of her system.

It was fucking infuriating.

Killian, for his part, seemed to have taken her note to heart. She hadn’t seen him at all since that night; although she had waited so long for him to appear on that first Sunday morning that she was nearly late to the shelter, he had never shown up. She told herself she should be relieved, but instead her anger grew. How dare he be respectful of her wishes? She’d been expecting the asshole player, expecting him to mock her for being so easy, to try to get in her pants again. How dare he give her the space she needed? How could he know she needed it? She tried to tell herself that it was just because he had no further interest in her, but something inside her refused to believe that.

And then there was the letter. A week after their encounter, Emma had returned home to find an envelope from the local sexual health clinic slid under her door. Inside was a report on an STD scan for Killian Jones. All negative. He was clean. At the bottom of the page in elegant, precise handwriting were the words “So you won’t worry, Swan.”

Emma had sighed in relief, a weight suddenly lifted from her shoulders, but at the same time she was outraged. How _dare_ he make such a thoughtful gesture, how _dare_ he anticipate her concerns and take steps to alleviate them, almost like he _cared_. Like she wasn’t just another notch on his bedpost.

Emma loathed the idea of being a notch, but at least it was what she expected, and she was starting to get tired of Killian not being what she expected.

But what made her by far the angriest was something she couldn’t bear to admit, even to herself. Especially not to herself. Waking up with him that morning, feeling his strong arms holding her close, his furry chest beneath her cheek, their legs twined together, his hand tangled in her hair, for a brief moment before she came to her senses Emma had been so _happy_. She’d felt calm and content and safe and _loved_ , and she’d wanted to curl into him and stay there forever. For a moment, it was bliss. Then she’d consciously registered the insane thoughts running through her head and the fear that had stabbed through her heart had sent her fleeing from her own apartment, barely taking a minute to scribble him a terse note. Her feelings terrified her, and she didn’t like being scared. Angry was better. She could handle angry.

 

*.*.*.

 

The first time Killian attempted Flirtation With Intent in the period ASE (After Sex with Emma) was a disaster. He had been doing okay, he thought, letting the familiar cheeky barman persona settle around his shoulders like a cloak, shielding him from the concern of his friends and allowing him to push aside his despair for at least a few hours every evening. But over a week had gone by and he was back at his own place again, getting back into the swing of his life, and he decided he needed to restart his sex life as well. A week was an age for Killian; he hadn’t been celibate for so long since he’d left the navy. He may have lost all hope of Emma, but he didn’t intend to live like a monk for the rest of his days.

 _No blondes, though_ , he told himself firmly. The mere idea made him ill. Maybe someday he would be able to look at a blonde and not feel a wrenching sense of loss, but that day would be some time in coming. In the meantime there were other hair colours to explore, other shapes and sizes of women.

And so when a lovely, curvy redhead came into the pub one evening and gave him a very interested once-over, he decided that the time had come.

He laid moves on her that were as smooth as ever, so practiced he did not even have to give them any thought. She responded eagerly. They danced the well-known dance until almost closing time, when tradition dictated that they make arrangements for the rest of the evening. He was just about to ask if she fancied a nightcap when she placed her hand on his arm. His skin crawled at her touch, and he had to force himself not to physically cringe. He felt sick and dizzy and revolted, not at her so much as at himself. For the first time he actually _thought_ about what he was doing, tried to imagine going home with her, touching her, letting her touch him, but his mind recoiled violently from the images those thoughts conjured up, and he knew beyond any doubt that he couldn’t go through with it.

With a tremendous effort, he patted the redhead’s hand and gently removed it from his arm. He shot her a smile, hoping it didn’t look like a grimace. “You have a good night, love,” he said, and fled to the kitchen, busying himself with closing-up tasks there until he could be sure she was gone. Leaning against the kitchen door, he cursed long and creatively. It looked as though his celibacy was going to go on rather longer than he wished.

 

*.*.*.

 

It was Saturday afternoon, nearly three weeks after her night with Killian, and Emma was curled on her sofa in comfy sweats, reading one of the books for her Human Behavior course that was starting soon. It would be the first course of her MSW, and she intended to be well prepared. There was a knock at her door. Emma opened it, surprised to find a studious-looking middle aged woman on the other side. She had straight, shoulder-length, dark blonde hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and was wearing a plain, khaki, short-sleeved, button-down shirt and a denim skirt that fell just below her knees. Her shoes were brown and practical. She smiled in a friendly way. “Hello,” she said, “I’m looking for Killian Jones.”

Emma was floored. Killian never, _never_ brought women to his apartment. Plus it was the middle of the afternoon, and this woman really did not look like his type.

But then, what did she know? Maybe he didn’t have a type.

“Um, well, he lives across the hall,” she said.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” said the woman with a laugh. “I must have misheard the apartment number.”

“No problem,” Emma smiled. The woman began to turn away, but Emma couldn’t suppress her curiosity. “Ah, if you don’t mind me asking, who are you? It’s just, Killian doesn’t have many visitors.”

“Not at all,” she replied, tone still friendly. “I’m Emily Hansbury, one of his colleagues from Columbia.”

“C-Columbia?” stuttered Emma.

Emily Hansbury gave her an odd look. “Yes, I’m an associate professor in the English department.” She took in Emma’s baffled expression. “You— you do know that Killian teaches comparative literature at Columbia, don’t you?”

“No, I absolutely do not know that!” exclaimed Emma. “He said he was a bartender! You’re telling me that Killian Jones is an English professor?”

“Well, technically he’s an adjunct professor of comparative literature, but effectively yes,” said Emily. “And also a bartender. Terrible waste of his talents if you ask me. We’ve been trying to get him to accept a full professorship for years now, but he keeps refusing. That’s why I’m here. There’s a tenure-track position that’s just become available and I’m trying to talk Killian into applying for it.”

Emma nodded, feeling like she’d just been smacked upside the head by a freight train. “Well… um, good luck, I guess,” she said lamely.

Emily smiled. “Thanks,” she said, and turned to knock on Killian’s door.

Emma shut her own door and pressed her ear to it, cupping her hand to magnify the sound. She heard Killian open his and greet Emily in a warm voice. He invited her inside. The door closed.

In a daze, Emma stumbled to her sofa and grabbed her laptop. She googled “Columbia University literature faculty,” and clicked on the first result. After a moment of scrolling through the page, there it was: Killian Jones, Adjunct Professor, English and Comparative Literature.

 _Well,_ thought Emma, _that explains the tweed jacket._

Holding her breath, she clicked on the link. There he was, smiling at the camera, wearing his typical button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up and buttons half-undone, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses that did funny things to Emma’s insides. _His classes must be popular with female students_ , she thought snarkily. _And probably some of the male ones too._

Underneath the picture were his office hours anda list of his research interests—none of which she understood— followed by a short blurb about his qualifications. BA Hons (2004) Classics and Modern Languages, MSt (2005) World Literatures in English, DPhil (2008) Medieval and Modern Languages, all Oxford University.

Oxford University. Killian had three degrees, from Oxford fucking University. She had a barely-scraped-by bachelor’s degree from SUNY Purchase. And she had been so proud, telling him about her acceptance to NYU. While he was a fucking _professor_ at Columbia. What must he think of her?

She remembered the delight on his face and the pride in his voice when he’d congratulated her, and a little voice in her head suggested that he had actually seemed to think she was pretty amazing. But that was clearly impossible. How could someone with his academic background be impressed by someone with hers?

Emma’s head was spinning. She wondered what else Killian could be hiding. Was he even a bartender? She had never actually seen him bartend. The pub where he worked —where he _claimed_ he worked— had been a favourite of hers until he’d moved in but since then she had avoided it, not wanting to see him in his element, surrounded by flirtatious women.

She heard noises coming from the hall, and raced to press her ear to the door again.

“I can’t promise you anything, Emily, except that I’ll give it my full consideration,” Killian was saying, a note of calm authority in his voice that she’d never heard before.

“Please do,” replied Emily Hansbury, “We’d all love to have you around full-time, and would be prepared to work around your other commitments…” her voice faded as they headed for the elevator.

Emma looked at her watch. Killian would be going off to work —if he did work there— at the pub. She knew his life was none of her business, by her own choice, that she’d had her chance to get to know him and she’d rejected it. She knew she could just wait until he came home to talk to him —or not talk to him at all, because he didn’t owe her any explanations— but she couldn’t resist the urge to investigate, couldn’t rest until she knew what was up. Perhaps it was the P.I. in her, but Emma couldn’t stand an unsolved mystery, and Killian Jones had suddenly become very mysterious indeed. She turned and raced for the shower, tossing her clothes on the floor as she went.

 

An hour and a half later, Emma stood outside the pub, wearing a short red dress and tall spiked heels, an outfit left over from her days in bail bonds. Possibly a bit excessive for the pub’s casual vibe, but she had felt the need for something more than her usual jeans. Drawing a deep breath, she pushed open the door and went inside.

Her eyes found him immediately. There he was, behind the bar, leaning casually against it as he poured a drink for an attractive brunette, flashing her a charming smile with a slight predatory edge. He was wearing a grey henley, unusual for him, but it _was_ barely buttoned, which was definitely in character. His eyes were rimmed with the black liner he sometimes wore. Silver rings flashed on his fingers. He couldn’t look less like an Oxford graduate and Columbia professor if he’d tried.

 _Maybe he does try_ , suggested a voice in her head. _Maybe he likes to be more than one thing._ Emma could understand that. She hated being defined by single qualities: orphan, abandoned, foster kid. Those things were part of her, but they weren’t all of what she was.

So just what the hell was Killian Jones?

She watched him interact with the brunette, greatly disliking the way he was flirting with her, the way he looked at her with sizzling intent.

He didn’t look at her, Emma, like that.

At least, he wouldn’t any more.

 _And why would he?_ inquired the voice. _You said it was a one-time thing. You didn’t even say it to his face, just left him a note and ran away. That was a pretty dick move._

 _“_ Maybe I can see now that that was a mistake,” she muttered. “Maybe don’t want it to be just one time. Maybe I want him to look at me like that again.”

 _Maybe he’s forgotten you already._

"There’s one way to find out.”

Pulling the front of her dress down slightly and fluffing her hair, Emma squared her shoulders and marched over to where Killian was. She slid onto a stool next to the brunette and leaned on the bar, making sure her cleavage was prominently displayed. “Hey, Killian,” she said, pitching her voice low.

He tensed at the sound of her voice, his eyes shooting to hers, then raking over her, taking in her dress and her cleavage and her hair and her red lips. She watched carefully, noting how his pupils dilated and his breath caught, though his face remained impassive.

 _Hah. So much for “maybe he’s forgotten you already,”_ she thought.

“Swan,” he said, and she did not miss the slight rasp in his voice. “What can I get for you?”

“Rum, neat,” she replied, and his eyebrows drew together slightly as she ordered his favourite drink. “And I was hoping to talk to you for a minute. Privately.”

“I’m working,” he said shortly, putting her glass down on the bar with slightly more force than necessary.

“You get a break, don’t you?” Out of the corner of her eye, Emma could see the brunette pouting at Killian, trying to regain his attention, then glaring daggers at Emma when she failed.

He hesitated for a moment before replying. “Aye. I can take one in half an hour.”

Emma downed her rum in one gulp, and pushed her glass towards him for a refill. “I’ll justwait here until you’re ready,” she said with a coy smile. The brunette slammed her own glass down on the bar and flounced off. Killian did not seem to notice.

 

Behind the bar, Killian seethed. He went through the motions of his tasks, but without any of his usual verve and enjoyment. His eyes kept flitting over to a certain blonde sitting on a stool at the bar, sipping her rum, her demure body language contrasting wildly with her insanely sexy dress and red lips, her hair tumbling around her shoulders in soft curls. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

He wanted to snarl, to smash the glasses, to start a fight. _What the_ hell _is she doing here?_ he thought viciously. _What could she possibly want?_ Was it not enough that she had destroyed his sex life, ripped his heart to shreds, now she had to interfere in his job as well? Just as he had been starting to feel on a more even keel, more comfortable and almost normal, finally able to flirt again without feeling physically sick although he hadn’t dared make another attempt to pull. He knew it would be a long road, but Killian had been beginning to think he might make it.

And then tonight Emma had suddenly appeared in _his pub_ in a dress as red as sin and clinging to the body that he’d been struggling for weeks to get out of his head, her voice caressing his name and her green eyes full of challenge. She was breathtaking, and he still loved her so much, wanted her more than he wanted air in his lungs, but at that moment he had almost hated her.

He delayed taking his break for over an hour, hoping she’d just go, but she remained, nursing her drink, skilfully repelling the many, many men who approached her. Killian wanted to murder every one of them.

Every few minutes her eyes would catch his and hold them for a moment before she looked away, their expression keeping him half-hard and on edge.

Finally, he gave up. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere, and he figured the sooner he found out what she wanted, the sooner she’d leave and he could try again to find some peace.

“Well, Swan,” he said, in as unfriendly a tone as he could manage, trying not to notice the way her eyes lit up when he approached, “Let’s get on with it then. What do you wish to speak to me about?”

“Can we go somewhere a bit quieter?”

He did not want to be alone with her, but couldn’t see an alternative. “Very well, follow me.”

He led her back to the stock room where he stood defensively in a corner and she perched on a stack of beer cases, crossing her legs gracefully and letting her shoe slide off her foot to dangle on her toes. Her hair fell in golden waves around her face as she leaned forward, watching him. Killian ground his teeth, determinedly ignoring his now full-on erection.

“Spit it out, then, Swan,” he snarled.

She hesitated for a moment, looking uncertain, then words burst from her in a torrent.

“I met your friend —er, your colleague— this afternoon. She came to my door, looking for you. Thought it was your place. We chatted a bit. She said… she said you’re a professor at Columbia. I googled you so I know it’s true. I just— I was a bit surprised. Why would you keep something like that a secret?”

“I don’t keep it a secret.”

“You never told _me_.”

“I never imagined you’d take any interest in such details of my life. We’re not exactly friends, love.”

Emma did not wish to examine why that remark hurt so much. “But you told me loads of other things about you. About the navy, and your brother…”

“Aye, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said bitterly.

She seemed surprised by his tone, but curiosity still burned in her eyes, and she persisted. “But you never mentioned _this_ thing, one you’re so interested in that you apparently have three degrees in it, and actually teach it at an Ivy League university. Why would you hold back such an important part of yourself when you willingly shared so much else?”

“Let me ask _you_ something, Emma. If I had told you I was a literature professor right when we first met, would you have believed me? Honestly, now?”

She thought for a moment. “Honestly, probably not.”

“Then why would I tell you? It was clear you’d already made up your mind about me. You saw what you wanted to see, all I did was let you see it.”

She opened her mouth to reply but he carried on.

“And of course everything you saw and judged me for was accurate. I work in a pub, I drink too much, and I have quite a lot of sex, mostly with women who mean little to me. The fact that I also teach literature does nothing to alter or mitigate any of those things you so clearly despise me for. So what would be the point of bringing it up?”

 

Emma was shocked. Although she had deliberately pushed Killian away, continually expressing harsh scorn of him and his lifestyle to keep him at a distance, she felt somehow hurt and surprised to discover that he thought she hated him. “I don’t despise you,” she protested. 

He snorted. “Please, Swan, I am an exceptionally intelligent man, as we have very recently established, kindly do not insult that intelligence with blatant falsehoods.”

“‘Falsehoods?’ What kind of word is that?” Why had she never noticed before that he talked like a college professor?

“A perfectly apt one!” he shouted, his temper starting to slip from his control. “Fucking hell, Emma, we barely exchanged a civil word for more than two years, then three weeks ago we had what I thought was a— an _extraordinary_ night together, after which you couldn’t get away from me fast enough!”

“I didn’t—”

“You ran away from _your own flat_ to escape my presence! I can take a hint, woman! So I stayed away, as you wished, going out of my way so you wouldn’t have to see me, and now you have the gall to show up at my place of work in that bloody dress and try to tell me you don’t despise me! Pull the other one, darling.”

Her heart clenched at the pain in his eyes, at the knowledge that she had put it there, that her actions had hurt him. She was ashamed to realise that in her rush to protect her own feelings, she had never considered what damage she may be doing to his.

She leapt from the beer cases and almost ran to him, barely holding back from flinging herself into his arms. Instead she tentatively touched his forearm, not pulling back even when he hissed out his breath and clenched his jaw.

“I’m sorry, Killian, truly. I have treated you badly. It’s just— It’s just— I— I’m so sorry.”

She wanted to tell him that he threw her off balance, confused her, that she had never felt such a powerful pull towards anyone before and that it terrified her. But that same terror gripped her throat and stole the words from it, and all she had left were actions.

In her heels she was almost eye-to-eye with him, and it was easy to run her hands up his arms and over his shoulders, to twine her arms around his neck and bring her lips to his, trying to tell him with her kiss that she didn’t hate him at all, that in fact every new thing she learned about him made her want him more. She tried to tell him that she understood, knew that the alcohol and casual sex were his ways of dealing with the pain of his past, just as her scorn and walls and running were her ways of dealing with the pain of hers, just defence mechanisms to protect her heart from the damage he could do to it.

He resisted at first, bringing his hands up to her arms as though to pull them away, but she clung like a burr, pressing her body tightly to his, nipping his lips with soft, damp kisses until he capitulated with a groan and wrapped his arms tightly around her, kissing her back with fierce passion.

After several long moments, they broke apart, panting, resting their foreheads together, hands still in each other’s hair.

“That’s one hell of an apology, Swan,” he growled, once he’d caught his breath.

“I can make it better,” she purred, sliding her hands down to his jeans, undoing them rapidly and reaching inside to stroke him.

“Emma—”

“Shhhh, let me do this.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to. Please, Killian.”

He had no power to resist her plea, or the heat in her voice as she spoke his name.

She pushed his jeans down his hips, then grasped his cock again, holding it firmly and stroking him, her eyes never leaving his. Keeping hold of him both with her eyes and her hand, she sank to her knees before him.

“Emma—” he tried once more.

“Killian, you’d better not start arguing with me again,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been wanting to do this since that night. Since before then, actually. So can you just shut up please and let me enjoy it?”

Without waiting for him to answer, she leaned in and licked slowly up the underside of his cock, tracing the sensitive vein with the tip of her tongue before swirling it around the head and taking as much of him into her mouth as she could. With her hand gently squeezing the base, she sucked hard, dragging her mouth up to the tip and swirling her tongue again, wrenching a tortured groan from him. She repeated this action again and again, taking him deeper each time, until his tip was hitting the back of her throat and he was moaning and babbling incoherently, one hand braced on the wall for balance and the other wrapped in her hair. Emma felt a little thrill of pleasure. He definitely had a thing for her hair. Without stopping the movement of her mouth and hand on his cock, she reached up with her other hand and cupped his balls. They were firm and compressed; he was close. Taking a handful of her hair, she wrapped it around them and stroked him as she took his cock deep into her mouth, squeezing the base hard as she sucked up him, trailing her tongue along him as she went. He came into her mouth with a strangled groan, hips pumping, hand clenching in her hair. She sucked him through it, keeping her mouth on him until his cock ceased to twitch, then licked the last drops of cum from its tip. Leaning back on her heels, she looked up at him. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, his face flushed, beads of sweat clinging to his temples.

 _He’s so goddamned gorgeous,_ she thought.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, slowly detangling his hand from her hair then taking one of hers in it and pulling her to her feet.

“Sweet mother of fuck, Emma,” he rasped. “That was…”

She still wasn’t quite ready for pillow talk, even when there was no pillow. She cut him off with her lips, kissing him hard before tearing her mouth away and leaning in to whisper in his ear. “I’ll see you back at the apartments, Killian.”

Then she was gone.

And so once again Killian was alone in the aftermath of an intense orgasm, with the woman who had made it happen nowhere to be found. At least this time he felt slightly more optimistic, if mightily confused.

Questions swirled in his head, about Emma, and their argument, and Emma, and her amazing mouth, and Emma, and what the hell all of this _meant_. He stood pondering until an errant draught reminded him that he was in the middle of the stock room with his jeans around his knees. Cursing under his breath, he righted himself and returned to the bar. A quick scan of the pub crowd revealed no sign of Emma.

“What the hell happened to you?” his friend and fellow barman Robin asked, coming up beside him. “You were gone forever and you look like you just caught a London bus in the small of the back.”

_Oh, nothing, really, I just had an earth-shattering blow job off a beautiful woman who broke my heart three weeks ago, that’s all._

“I — I don’t quite know.”

“You don’t know?” Robin rounded on him in astonishment that was only partly faked. “Since when does Killian Jones not know something? You’re the biggest know-it-all who’s ever been known to know things. If you don’t know, then the universe may well implode. So what’s wrong? Is your brain broken?”

“Steady on, mate,” said Killian shortly, not feeling up to his usual banter with Robin, “I’ve just got some things to work out in my head, is all. I’m fine.” He grabbed a bar towel and turned to a waiting customer, ignoring Robin’s eyes boring holes in the back of his head.

 

For the third week in a row, Killian did not go home from the pub on Saturday night with a woman. Instead, he went to his own home, alone, more confused and troubled than he could remember being.

He was just taking out his keys when he heard Emma’s door open. Dreading what he might find but also desperately _hoping_ , he turned around. She was leaning against her doorjamb in the casual manner he himself often adopted, wearing tiny pajama shorts and a white tank top with no bra. Her hair was loose and silky around her face and she still had on the red lipstick she’d worn to the pub.

Killian stared, heart pounding, damnably unsure of what to do.

She regarded him expectantly, and when he did nothing threw her hands in the air. “Well, are you coming in or aren’t you?” she demanded.

He lunged at her, snatching her up in his arms, slamming her door shut behind them and pushing her up against it, devouring her mouth, one hand sliding up her back under her shirt, and the other slipping beneath her shorts to pull her hips tightly to his.

She broke away, panting. “I guess that means you’re coming in,” she said breathlessly.

 

*.*.*.

 

For the first time in over two years, Killian woke up on a Sunday morning next to a blonde and his first instinct was not to flee. _Quite the opposite, actually,_ he thought, cuddling Emma closer. The fact that he had woken up with her at all was definite progress, although he had no illusions that things would be smooth sailing once _she_ awoke. Unless he was very much mistaken, she would immediately start looking for some way to run again, or at least to push him away.

“I’m awake, you know,” she muttered crossly. “And I’m not going to run away this time, so you can stop squeezing me so tightly.”

Killian held his breath as she opened her eyes and looked up at him, a small smile breaking across her face.

“Hey,” she said, “Do you like pancakes?”

 

Killian had never been so happy to be proven wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost didn't include that last paragraph, but I think we all need something fluffy after all that angst. Enjoy it while you can, the angst will be back in full force in the next chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Emma made them pancakes; it seemed important to her to do so, though she was uncertain about why. All she knew was that she couldn’t bear for Killian to think she hated him, and if she had to resist her urge to run away from what he made her feel, then she would make an effort to do that, at least long enough to give him breakfast.

She set the plate in front of him and tried not to be too pleased by his delighted expression.

“They’re just from a box,” she warned.

“Looks delicious, love,” he said, his eyes on her and not the pancakes.

She wanted to kiss him, but resisted; the idea of casual affection between them made her antsy and uncomfortable. Even sharing breakfast with him was almost more than she could handle, her enjoyment of his company warring with her urge to escape, to hide behind her walls before he was able to get too close.

And to her surprise, she did enjoy his company. He was easy to talk to, clever and funny, drawing her out with gentle teasing and insightful questions, and she found herself telling him about her work as a bail bonds person and how it had inspired her to pursue her degree.

“I can’t believe you drove all the way to Purchase three times a week,” he said, shaking his head. “There were days when I could barely be bothered to drag myself across the quad for my tutorials. That’s extraordinary dedication, love.”

She wanted to believe the admiration in his eyes was real, but her insecurity refused to be quashed. Suddenly she realised that their pancakes had long since been eaten and their coffee drunk, and that they had been sitting in her kitchen just talking for over two hours. She looked at him, sitting there smiling at her, his hair still mussed from her fingers and a red mark she’d made prominent on his neck. She wanted him to stay, and not even for sex—she had the strangest urge to curl up on the sofa with him and watch a movie, or just read books together. And that was when she knew he had to go, _now_ , before she made a fool of herself and begged him not to. 

 

Killian could see the very moment when the cosy domestic scene became too much for Emma and she began to look for a way out. He opened his mouth to give her one, to make an excuse and leave before their easy camaraderie had a chance to sour, but she got there first.

“So, hey, just so we’re clear, about ‘us’” she made quotation marks with her fingers in the air, “this is just casual, right? We don’t have to make it into a thing, do we?”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, I mean, we aren’t dating or anything like that. It’s just sex.”

Killian had been expecting something like this but it still hurt, and he lashed out before hecould think. “Right, love, just sex. Quite a convenient setup, really, far easier than having to go out and work for it.”

For the briefest second she looked hurt, before her mask fell into place as well.

“Right. Convenient and casual. The two Cs of a good hookup,” she joked lamely.

Her words hit him like a punch in the gut, but he managed to cover his reaction with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Well, Swan, thank you for a most pleasurable evening and a delightful breakfast, but I should be going.”

“Yeah, okay. I guess I’ll see you around then.”

“Indeed.” He collected his things and went to her door.

Emma warred with herself for a moment, then called out to him, almost against her will. “Killian!”

He turned to look at her.

“You could come back tonight. About nine?”

He softened slightly and smiled, with his eyes this time. “Nine it is. I’ll see you then, love.”

 

*.*.*.

 

That day Killian found that for perhaps the first time he was able to look at everything that had happened between himself and Emma with clear eyes. He could see now that because he’d been so convinced she loathed him, he had erred badly in his approach to her. It was unthinkable to him to pursue a woman who was clearly uninterested, and so he had never even tried to appeal to her, had never offered her anything of himself that she might want. It was true that he’d deliberately avoided mentioning Columbia, and also the aid he’d given Milah, and how he spent his Sunday afternoons. He hadn’t wanted her to think that he was eager for her approval; that was his pride acting up, preferring to lean in to her negative impression of him rather than make himself vulnerable to her by attempting to change her mind.

Emma’s extreme reaction at their first meeting had thrown him so off balance that he had never considered the possibility that he might have misinterpreted things, had forgotten to question his premises even when it became clear that they were faulty. _Schoolboy error,_ he scoffed at himself, his tutors would be ashamed of him.

Considering everything in this new light, and knowing what he did of Emma’s inclination to run from and push away anything that made _her_ feel vulnerable —really, they were so much alike— Killian reached the inescapable conclusion that Emma must have some sort of feelings for him.

She was attracted to him, that was evident. She was also intrigued by him, or she wouldn’t have come to the pub to confront him about Columbia, clearly her curiosity had got the best of her there. And she hadn’t liked to see him hurt. Killian clung to this realisation with desperate fingers. Her reaction to his pain had been more than just simple concern for another human creature, she had hated to see _him_ hurting, because of what _she_ did. She had hated it so much that she’d made the effort to give him breakfast and a bit of conversation that morning, rather than shoving him out the door the moment he awoke, as she’d probably wished to.

Attraction, intrigue, and a tiny seed of _something else_ , those things Killian could work with. After all, his feelings for her had begun with attraction and intrigue. The seed could be sown and nurtured into a gorgeous flower with a little care and attention, and Killian intended to nurture the fuck out of it. After that morning he was more convinced than ever that Emma was exactly what he’d always wanted, and now that he knew she felt something for him too he was prepared to fight for her.

 

*.*.*.

 

At precisely nine o’clock that evening, Killian knocked on Emma’s door. She opened it wearing an expression that tried to be sardonic, but couldn’t quite succeed.

“You’re right on time,” she said.

“Punctuality is the politeness of kings, Swan,” he replied with a slight smirk.

“And what the hell does that mean?”

“Means it’s rude to be late. Are you going to invite me in?”

She stepped back so he could enter, then shut the door behind him. When she turned back around he was in front of her, holding up a single red rose.

She laughed. “A rose? Really? Didn’t we _just_ establish that we’re not dating?”

“That we are certainly not, love, but I make a habit of bringing a rose whenever I have a casual hookup with a gorgeous neighbour.” He handed her the rose and noted that she couldn’t quite hide her pleased expression as she took it.

“That’s pretty cheesy,” she said, heading for the kitchen.

“Quite,” he replied, following her, watching as she dug a jam jar out of her cupboard and filled it with water, surreptitiously sniffing the rose before placing it in the jar. Killian wanted to cheer, knowing he’d read her correctly. His Emma may be formidably tough on the outside, but inside she was as sweet and squidgy as a marshmallow. He watched as she arranged the rose in the jar, adjusting its leaves and rubbing a petal gently between her thumb and forefinger. Her face was soft and dreamy, until she suddenly seemed to remember where she was and her mask snapped back into place.

Killian’s heart stuttered in his chest. _How you fascinate me, Swan_ , he thought.

 

Emma forced herself to look away from the rose, not to moon over it like a lovesick teenager. _It’s just a stupid flower,_ she told herself, _it means nothing_. She turned to look at Killian, who was standing in the kitchen doorway regarding her with a fond expression that made nerves jump in her belly. “So, you want a drink or something?” she asked him. She felt like she could use one, to calm her butterflies.

“No, thank you love,” he replied.

She couldn’t hide her surprise. “You don’t?”

“I don’t normally drink on Sunday nights. Does that surprise you?”

“A bit, I guess. I don’t drink on Sundays either, usually, I just thought it might, you know, ease things a little. Get us in the mood.”

He stepped in close to her, placing his hands on her hips and slipping his thumbs under the hem of her shirt. “I don’t require libations to desire you, Emma,” he said, his voice low and velvety, igniting the familiar ache deep within her. Slowly, he stroked her bare skin, his gentle touch causing her heart to pound and moisture to flood between her legs in a rush that was almost embarrassing. He turned her on _so easily;_ the merest brush of his fingers and she was quivering and ready. Emma found her hands sliding up his arms, her eyes meeting his, getting trapped in his intense blue gaze.

“And what about you, love?” he asked, leaning in closer until their faces were a breath apart. She noted his wide pupils and uneven breathing, and felt a rush of pleasure that he was just as affected as she was. “Do you have need of alcohol to put you in an appropriate frame of mind?”

“No,” she breathed, and their lips met.

The kiss was deep and intense from the beginning; they had shared enough kisses by that point to know exactly the mechanics that suited them. Their lips brushed and clung, tongues tangled and stroked. Emma stood on her toes and wrapped one arm tightly around his neck, while with the hand of the other she unbuttoned his shirt, humming with pleasure when her fingers finally stroked up through the hair on his chest. He slid his hands beneath her loose sweatpants, letting them fall to the floor as he squeezed her ass and pulled their hips tightly together, rocking slightly so she could feel his erection against her centre. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her other arm around his neck, excitement coursing through her as he carried her out of the kitchen and headed for the bedroom.

“Mmmmmmm,” said Emma, finally breaking their kiss, “I love it when you carry me.” She trailed kisses up his jawline to his ear and whispered, "Will you fuck me against the wall, Killian? I’ve been thinking about you doing that all afternoon.”

His arms tightened convulsively around her and his breath caught. He turned into her hallway then turned again, bringing her back up roughly against the wall in almost the exact spot where they had nearly fucked on the stormy night three weeks before.

He pulled back just enough to look at her face. “Do you often think about me fucking you, Emma?”

She thrilled to the rasp in his voice and the blazing heat in his eyes. “Way too often,” she admitted, too keyed up to filter her thoughts before they turned to words. “I can’t stop thinking about it. We haven’t even scratched the surface of all the ways I want you to fuck me.”

He was silent for a moment, emotion stopping the words in his throat, the ones he longed to say tangling with the ones she was ready to hear. “We’ll have to remedy that,” he finally said, roughly, his hand coming up to stroke her cheek and brush her hair back, weaving his fingers through it. He cleared his throat. “Now tell me about this wall fantasy, darling, what does it entail?”

She was not usually much for talking during sex, but his evident fascination emboldened her. “It starts off pretty much like this,” she said, “You holding me against the wall with your hips, my legs wrapped around you, and I can feel your cock and you grind it against me.”

He did so.

She moaned, the words flowing more easily as her conscious mind got lost in pleasure. “And I could probably come just from that, but you won’t let me, and you pull off my shirt and suck on my nipples —oh, fuck, yes, like that— and I could probably come from that too because —oh, gods— because it feels so good to have your mouth on me.”

He was following her instructions as she spoke, and as his mouth closed on her nipple she leaned her head back against the wall and clung to his shoulders, panting and groaning as he caressed first one and then the other with his lips and tongue and teeth, mixing gentle strokes with rough ones until she couldn’t bear it anymore, and pulled his head back up to lean against hers. “Fuck, you’re good at that,” she gasped, “and when I think about how good you are with your mouth and your tongue, I want to kiss you again, and I pull off your shirt so I can feel your chest hair against my nipples, which are _really_ sensitive now because of you.” His shirt fell to the floor, and he adjusted their bodies so that her breasts were pressed tightly to his chest. She hummed in pleasure and he leaned in to kiss her, but just before their lips could touch, she whispered “And you keep grinding against me and I want to come but I can’t, because I need you inside me when I do.”

He took her mouth fiercely, the rhythm of his lips and tongue matching that of his hips as he rocked them against her.

When they finally came up for air, Emma’s mind was so fogged with lust she could barely think, but she forced out the final words. “Then you rip off my panties and you fuck me,” she said.

He growled deep in his throat and ran his hands down her body, hooking one arm securely under her ass for support while with his other hand he grabbed the small scrap of lace she wore and tore it off her, tossing it aside while she hurriedly undid the fastenings of his jeans. He managed to yank them down enough to free himself and stroked the head of his cock through her folds, moaning at how wet she was, before thrusting up into her, filling her in one smooth stroke, the force of it slamming her ass back hard into the wall.

She locked her legs tightly around his waist and met his thrusts with her own, riding his cock as he pounded it into her, kissing him frantically, her hands gripping his hair. They came after mere minutes, together, their cries mingling in the air as their movements became jerky and slowed before finally ceasing altogether, leaving them clinging to each other and fighting for breath. He leaned his head against the wall behind her and she buried her face in his neck, nuzzling him like a kitten. She wanted to curl up and purr like one, but settled for whispering in his ear. “That was better than my fantasy,” she said, “Better than _this_ fantasy. But I have sooo many more. Let’s see if you can top them too.”

He groaned, turning his face into her hair. “Have mercy, Swan,” he said. “Let a man catch his breath before you start enticing him again with your delightfully filthy imagination.”

They remained entwined for a few moments longer, then she unhooked her legs from his waist and slid to the floor, her muscles protesting after having been locked in place for so long. Taking his hand, she led him down the hallway, stopping just outside her bedroom door to look up at him. She loved his face right after an orgasm; the sharp edges of his features seemed softer, his eyes hazy and contented and so, so blue.

She reached up to stroke his cheek, then pulled him down and kissed him, softly, almost tenderly, with none of the wild passion that normally blazed between them at the slightest touch. The kiss ended and they rested their foreheads together, breath mingling.

“Let’s go to bed, Killian,” she said.

 

*.*.*.

 

Emma awoke early the next morning with Killian wrapped around her, still sound asleep. He slept like the dead, she thought with amusement, although he was alert and focused the instant he woke up. She envied him that; generally she needed three cups of coffee and a blistering shower before she felt ready to tackle the day. Speaking of…

“Killian,” she nudged him with her elbow, “Wake up.”

He opened his eyes and smiled. “Good morning, love,” he said, tightening his arms around her and kissing her softly. She hummed in response, heat beginning to coil in her belly, but she didn’t have time to be distracted.

She pulled away, trying to steady her breathing. “I have to be at work in two hours.”

“Plenty of time,” he said, leering comically at her as he rolled her onto her back.

“Stop it!” she laughed, pushing him away. “I’m going to go have a quick shower and get dressed, then I can make some breakfast.” She paused, watching him carefully. “Um, I mean, if you want some.”

He grinned at her, eyes warm. “I’d love some breakfast, but don’t trouble yourself, love, I can make it.”

“Can you?” she asked doubtfully.

He placed a hand on his heart.“You wound me, Swan, with your blatant disbelief. I am a grown man, of course I can make breakfast. As long as it’s some species of eggs on toast, then I can make it.”

She laughed again. She laughed a lot with him, she noticed. “Scrambled eggs?” she asked, with a hint of challenge.

“Done.”

 

He scrambled a decent egg, thought Emma, as they sat together in the kitchen forty-five minutes later. She watched him eat, questions she wanted to ask him bubbling up in her throat, threatening to spill out. She wished like hell she didn’t find him so fascinating.

“So, what are you doing today?” She couldn’t stop the question from bursting forth.

“I’ve got to go to my office at the university this morning. It’s still summer holidays, but I’ve a meeting with some students whom I’m supervising on an independent study. And I suppose I should probably at least pretend to think about this position that Emily wants me to apply for.”

“Why do you have to pretend to think about it? Don’t you want it?”

“No, not really.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t wish to be a full-time academic.”

“You spent an awful lot of time in school for someone who doesn’t wish to be a full-time academic. I mean, what’s a DPhil, anyway?”

“It’s Oxford’s version of a PhD.”

Emma knew this, because she had looked it up. But she was still curious. “Why do they need their own version?”

“It’s the oldest university in the English-speaking world and they’re quite keen that no one should forget that. They have to do something to keep separate from the riffraff.”

“Is that really the reason?”

He chuckled. “No, not really, but it’s true that Oxonians in general have a tremendous sense of unearned superiority.”

She paused for a moment and sipped her coffee before asking the question that had been on her mind for the past two days. “So why do you work as a bartender if you have Oxford’s version of a PhD?”

He shrugged. “I don’t care to be boxed in by expectations.”

 _Aha,_ thought Emma, _as I suspected._

“Academia can be quite a narrow and stifling world, with strict codes for behaviour, strict rules for what is and isn’t acceptable in everything from research topics to writing styles to one’s associates and the way one spends one’s time. I just need an escape from that sometimes. That’s why I don’t want a full professorship. It’s why I went into the navy.”

“You were in the navy after Oxford?”

“Aye. I had just finished my thesis, and was supposed to continue with postgraduate study and tutoring, but I’d been growing more and more restive under the increasing number of demands and expectations being placed on me, and finally I couldn’t take it anymore and lashed out. I got myself dismissed from the university, and the following week I enlisted. Liam was furious. My brother.”

Emma didn’t miss the significance of his phrasing. _I got myself dismissed_ , like it was in some way intentional. “Why was he furious?”

“He’d sacrificed quite a lot to support me financially so I could get my education. Then I “threw it all away” in his words, by doing something that “just anyone” could do. He couldn’t understand that I wanted to do it for that exact reason. I studied languages and literature because I love them, but I didn’t want that to be all my life was, forever. I didn’t want to become one of the dusty old dons who know everything about their subject and nothing about the wider world. I wanted to visit all the places I’d read about, and meet people from everywhere, not just the privileged elite. In the navy I was able to do those things.”

“So how did you get yourself kicked out?”

He turned pink and scratched nervously behind his ear. “I’d prefer not to say.”

Emma had never seen him so flustered. It was freaking adorable. “Oh, come on, it can’t have been that bad.”

“I assure you it was.”

“And I know that it was at least partly on purpose. You were looking for a way out.”

 _Naturally she’d recognise another person wanting to escape,_ thought Killian.

“Aye, I was at that. Though if I’d shown more strength of character I could have left in a more dignified way. And a far less damaging one.”

“Well, anyway, whatever it was it was years ago, I won’t hold it against you.”

“On the contrary, love, I fear it will only reinforce your negative opinions of me.”

“Well, now you’ve got to tell me, the curiosity is killing me.”

Killian decided to lay his cards on the table. If he wanted a real relationship with her, he couldn’t —and _shouldn’t_ — hide the ugliness of his past.

“I slept with the wife of one of my college’s fellows.”

“Well, that’s not so…”

“Multiple times. It was— well, it was an affair. One which I told him about, loudly, in front of the whole college.”

“Oh.”

“I was trying to force the issue so she would leave him. He punched me, told me to leave his family alone. Then I beat him senseless.”

“Ah.”

“He was in hospital for three days.” Killian’s mouth twisted in self-disgust. “I have a terrible temper, Emma, and though I’ve mostly learned to control it, when I was younger it got me in quite a lot of trouble.”

Emma remembered the other night, in the pub, when anger had simmered behind his eyes but he had carefully corralled it and tamped it down. “That is pretty awful. But I have to say, it doesn’t really seem like you. At least not anymore.”

“Perhaps not, but that doesn’t change what I did. The worst part is that I was utterly in the wrong. The man was just standing up for himself and his marriage, but all I could think about was that he’d hit me and he still had the woman I thought of as _mine_ , and I wanted vengeance. I was young, and I thought I was in love. But that’s no excuse. I deserved every one of the consequences that came to me, and more.”

“And you got out of Oxford.”

“And I was very nearly run out of Oxford on a rail. But yes, it got me the escape I was looking for. At the expense of the fellow’s marriage. And his health. I regret the whole debacle profoundly, though I wouldn’t trade my time in the navy for anything.”

“How long were you in the navy?”

“Eight years.”

“And you left because Liam died?”

“Aye.”

“What happened?”

For a moment he looked deeply pained and then the charming mask dropped into place, and he flashed her a bright smile. “Swan, as much as I enjoy talking about myself, hadn’t you better be going to work?”

She looked at her watch. “Oh, shit, yeah, I’m super late.” She didn’t like leaving the conversation hanging like that, but work wouldn’t wait. Another time, she promised him silently. “Are you ready to go?”

“Whenever you are, love.”

She let them both out of the apartment and locked the door. When she turned around, he was there in front of her, brushing her hair back from her face and giving her a quick, hot kiss.

“Have a wonderful day, Emma,” he whispered.

 

*.*.*.

 

“How are things going with the princess?” Milah asked him a few weeks later.

“Fine.”

“You see her often?”

“Most nights.”

“But never in the daytime?”

“Mornings. We have breakfast together.”

“Nights and breakfasts but no days or dinners. That’s an odd sort of relationship.”

Milah looked disapproving and he knew it stemmed from concern. She was worried that he was in too deep with a woman who didn’t return his devotion, who would break him when she inevitably found someone else. Killian wasn’t sure how to explain that yes, all he had with Emma was sex and breakfast, but that breakfast was a significant step for her, and the sex was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. The way she was in bed with him, so open and giving and tender, he knew _that_ was the real Emma, the woman behind the walls. The woman he would do absolutely anything to keep in his life.

Each morning she asked him questions about himself which he answered freely, gently encouraging her to talk about herself too. They knew each other so well now. He’d told her things he had never told another soul, even Milah, and he was certain she had also told him a few of her darkest secrets.

He could see the cracks in her walls widening, although she was still guarded, still hesitant to allow herself to be too vulnerable, every time they were together she softened more. Every time he came back, every time he brought her a flower, every time he kissed her when she wasn’t expecting it, she let herself trust him just that little bit more. His mind attempted to protect him by insisting that it meant nothing, but his ridiculous heart screamed that it did, that her feelings for him were growing stronger and more complex. He knew she didn’t love him, but he was starting to think it might be possible to qualify that statement with a ‘yet’. She didn’t love him _yet_.

_Yet._

 

*.*.*.

Emma was sitting at work, half her mind on the internet searches she was running on her newest client’s allegedly cheating husband, the other half on Killian. She had aced her latest exam in Human Behavior, and she couldn’t wait to tell him. The way his eyes lit up with pride and delight when she spoke of her achievements made her melt inside, made her feel as brilliant and amazing as he clearly thought she was. She shouldn’t want that, she told herself firmly, was actually terrified by how much she wanted it, but also she couldn’t bear to let it go. He’d become… important to her, more than she allowed herself to think about.

“Hey, Emma!” cried a bright and cheerful voice from over her left shoulder. She turned around to see David’s wife, Mary Margaret.

“Hey, MM, how’s it going?”

“Great! How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever! David says you’re really busy with studying, but I wish you’d take some time to come see us, I miss you!”

Emma was swamped by a wave of guilt. Although she definitely had been busy studying, the truth was she hadn’t been out with Mary Margaret and David in so long because she’d been spending all her evenings in bed with Killian.

“I’m really sorry, Mary Margaret, I have been kinda AWOL lately. Why don’t we make plans to go out this weekend?” Surely she could spare some time for her two best friends, thought Emma. They weren’t late-night people, she’d be back before Killian got home from the pub, so she wouldn’t have to miss seeing him.

“Oh, wonderful, I’m glad you’re free. That’s actually why I’m here. There’s an old friend of mine from college who’s just moved to the city and hardly knows _anyone_ , and I was hoping you’d come out with him. And with David and me, of course. Like a double date!”

“Mary Margaret…”

“I know you don’t like being set up, Emma, but Walsh is a really nice guy, I’m sure you’ll like him. Who knows what could happen! Just give it a chance! Please?”

Emma didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t told David and Mary Margaret about Killian, because what was there to tell? They weren’t dating, and David and MM were not the sort of people who would understand her and Killian’s sex-and-breakfast arrangement, and they definitely wouldn’t understand that that arrangement had somehow become more important to Emma than any “real” relationship she’d ever had. She looked at Mary Margaret’s hopeful face and sighed. She couldn’t refuse to do this favour for her friend.

“OK, MM, but it’s not a date, all right? Just a casual dinner with friends.”

Mary Margaret squeed with excitement. “Oh, Emma, thank you. We won’t call it a date if you don’t want to. Just please keep an open mind about Walsh. I really think you two could be great together!”

“OK, OK, I’ll keep an open mind.”

“Mary Margaret hugged her, and Emma leaned in to her embrace. Mary Margaret gave the best hugs.

“Promise?” Mary Margaret asked.

“Promise,” said Emma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so not as angsty as I'd thought it might get. Yet.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves.

Emma woke up on Saturday morning in what she had come to consider the normal way, wrapped in Killian’s arms with her head on his chest and their legs tangled together. He was still asleep, his face relaxed and almost boyish, dark hair falling across his forehead. She brushed it back, letting the soft strands slide through her fingers, then ran her hand down his face and neck to his chest and then to his abdomen, her fingertips grazing over the smooth ridges of muscle there. His body was lean, but strong and toned, and Emma felt that she could happily spend hours just exploring it. She let her fingers drift lower, and when she heard his sharp intake of breath looked up to find him awake and watching her.

She smiled at him, not ceasing to stroke her fingers across his skin. “Can I ask you something?” she said.

He looked slightly surprised. She never initiated conversation when they were still in bed, preferring to talk during breakfast in the more neutral venue of the kitchen. Sharing thoughts with someone while also naked and wrapped around them was far too intimate for her. But that morning Emma was feeling lazy and she wasn’t ready to get up yet. 

Killian answered her question as he always did. “Anything, love.”

“Where do you work out?”

“Pardon?”

“Well, you’re pretty fit, but I never see you at the gym. Or at least not my gym. So where do you go?”

He looked slightly bashful, reaching up to scratch behind his ear in what she had quickly recognised as his nervous tell. It melted her heart as it always did.

“Ah. Well. Yes. I don’t go to a gym. I mean, I do, in a manner of speaking, but still I don’t.”

“Killian. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He looked harried for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. “I go to a fencing club,” he confessed.

“Fencing? What, like with swords?”

He nodded. “Aye.”

“Real swords?”

“Indeed, all manner of them. Epées, broadswords, cutlasses,” now that the secret was out, Killian warmed to his subject. “Each one has a different history and requires a different fighting style, so it’s quite educational as well as being a good workout.”

Emma wanted to laugh at that —he was _such_ a nerd— but she needed clarification. “You work out… by swordfighting.”

“Aye.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really, Swan. Three times a week, minimum.”

“ _Really!?_ ”

“I fail to see what’s so difficult to believe,” he groused. It’s not _that_ unusual. Something I got into when I was a lad, actually, and I was pleased to learn I could continue it here in the States. The club is not five blocks from here, and I am certainly not the only person who knows of it.”

She was still gaping, and shook her head to clear it. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just that sometimes I can’t quite believe you’re real.”

He looked pleased by that remark, but quickly covered it with a saucy grin. “I would have thought that I had provided you with ample evidence of my existence, love,” he said, stroking his hand down her body then bringing it up to cup her breast and tease her nipple with his thumb. “Perhaps you require further proof?”

“Mmmmmm,” said Emma, as he stroked her. Then she had a thought. “So,” she purred, “Just how good would you say you are at this… swordfighting you do?” She ran her hand down his body, closing it over his cock on the word “sword.”

He caught her meaning instantly. “I am considered quite reasonably skilled at wielding my… weapon,” he growled, rolling her onto her back and raising his eyebrow at her in an exaggerated leer. "Would you not agree, Swan? Or do you require me to jab you with it once again?"

She giggled and he pounced on her, whispering increasingly obscene and ridiculous sword-based innuendos in her ear until she was laughing and moaning at once, and finally sighing as he slid inside her and carried her away on a wave of ecstasy.

 

After breakfast was finished and the door had shut behind Killian, Emma sat on her sofa feeling strangely empty. Watching Killian leave every morning was becoming harder and harder. During the week when she had to rush off to work it wasn’t so bad, but on weekends she was coming to dread it. She wanted so badly for him to stay, to spend the day with him, to go out for lunch or a walk, or just to sit at home and do nothing together. That morning she had stalled his departure by having sex with him twice and then making a complicated omelet for breakfast so that by the time he left it was almost noon. _Still way too early_ , thought Emma morosely, as the day stretched out before her, hours and hours remaining before she could see him again. Fortunately, she could pass some of the time that night at dinner with David and Mary Margaret. And someone called Walsh, apparently. Emma was very much looking forward to spending time with her friends, but she hoped that this Walsh character wouldn’t be too much in the way.

 

*.*.*.

 

Walsh, as it turned out, was exactly as Mary Margaret had described. Nice. Sort of aggressively nice, thought Emma, as though he had a point to prove with it. But he was fine. She liked him. It was enjoyable and kind of relaxing to spend time with a man with no pressure and no expectations. He wasn’t in the same league as Killian, of course, not anywhere close to it. But as much as she enjoyed being with Killian, his presence was a constant assault on her senses, exciting and exhilarating but also exhausting. She had to battle her feelings for him ceaselessly, and she hadn’t realised how tiring that was until she found herself in a social situation with a man for whom she had no feelings to battle. So when Walsh, perfectly nicely and with no hint of any ulterior intent, asked if she would show him around the neighbourhood sometime, she shrugged and said okay.

 

Somehow Walsh managed to talk David and Mary Margaret into going to a club after dinner, so Emma got home much later, much drunker, and feeling much more tired than she had expected. She kicked off her heels and collapsed on the sofa. Killian would be back from the pub in less than an hour, she would wait up for him, she thought. Five minutes later she was asleep.

She half awoke some time later when strong arms slipped around her and lifted her up off the sofa, settling her securely against a warm chest. Soft lips brushed a kiss across her forehead.

“Killian?” she murmured.

“Shhh, my love, I’ve got you,” he whispered, his voice resonating through her body as he began to carry her to the bedroom.

She snuggled into him and nuzzled his neck. “You smell so good,” she said. Just enough alcohol remained in her system to make her both chatty and truthful. “You taste good too. You taste good everywhere. Sometimes I just want to lick you.” She ran her tongue along his collarbone to demonstrate. He swallowed hard, and she felt the movement of his throat against her cheek. “You know what I love?” she asked as he opened the bedroom door.

“What’s that, darling?”

“I love when you go down on me and I go down on you, then we kiss and I can taste both of us together. It’s just so perfect,” she sighed as he laid her down on the bed, then reached up to stroke his face. “Don’t you think it’s perfect?”

“Aye, that I do,” he replied, his voice hoarse, his eyes full of emotion. “Perfect.”

“Can we do that tonight?”

“My darling, you are rather inebriated—”

“I knew you’d say that!” she crowed, grinning triumphantly. “I knew you’d say ‘inebriated’ instead of ‘drunk.’”

“It’s very bad form to—” 

“To take advantage of a drunk, sorry, _inebriated_ woman, yes I knew you’d say that too. You’re always such a gentleman.”

“I do try.”

“But I don’t want you to be” she insisted, grabbing his shirt and starting to unbutton it. “I want you to rip off my clothes and touch me everywhere, make me come hard for you. I promise I won’t regret it in the morning.”

“Love—”

She tightened her hold on his shirt, pulling him down to her. “I can’t go a night without feeling you in me,” she said fiercely, her voice breaking. “I can’t do it Killian.”

Killian hesitated, though he knew he was powerless to resist her pleas, that he would grant her anything she asked of him. Perhaps Milah was right, he thought, perhaps he was in too deep. But faced with her soft green eyes begging him to make love to her, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He wanted to be in deep, wanted to sink so deeply into her that they wouldn’t know where he left off and she began, wanted to get lost in the softness and comfort he found in her arms.

“Very well, sweetheart, but I want you to stop talking now, all right?”

“What—”

Killian knew that if she let her hold on her emotions slip, if she said something too revealing while not fully in control of herself she would withdraw, try to push him away, and that he could not bear. “You may not regret the act tomorrow, but you will regret the words. Just be quiet now and let me love you.”

 

*.*.*.

 

On Monday after she finished her class, Emma met Walsh in front of his new apartment. He lived only a few blocks from her, so she knew the neighbourhood well. They walked around for about an hour as she showed him interesting places to eat and shop, and fun things to do in the area. When they arrived back at his place he invited her up for a drink.

Emma looked at him intently, but she could detect nothing in his manner beyond a casual offer to a new friend. Another time she’d have taken him up on it. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get home,” she said. “I have a lot of studying to do tonight. Big assignment due in two weeks and I need to make a start on it.”

“No problem,” said Walsh, smiling. “But you’ve got to let me do something to say thank you for the tour and the welcome. Maybe I can buy you lunch tomorrow at that deli you showed me?”

Emma considered it. A weekday lunch at one of her favourite spots was nothing she wouldn’t share with any friend, and again Walsh wasn’t acting like he thought he was asking her for a date. So she agreed.

Over the next two weeks she saw him several times, for lunch, for a drink after work, for a walk through the park, at a bar with David and Mary Margaret. Later Emma would kick herself for how naive she had been, but at the time it genuinely never occurred to her that Walsh was after anything other than a friend in a new city. There was absolutely no spark between them. He was pleasant company, but she forgot about him as soon as he was gone.

Not like Killian, who was constantly on her mind.

On Saturday two weeks after they’d met, Walsh texted her to ask if she wanted a coffee and a walk through the park and she jumped at the chance. Anything to get her out of the apartment and hopefully ease the bleakness that had settled in her chest the moment Killian had left that morning. Emma had actually had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from begging him not to go, and in the two hours since his departure she had considered and rejected half a dozen lame excuses to go knock on his door. She needed a distraction.

Eagerly, she grabbed her bag and went out to meet Walsh.

They took their coffee to go and strolled through the park, enjoying the autumn colours and chatting aimlessly about work and school and the barbecue that David and Mary Margaret were throwing the next afternoon, which they were both planning to attend. When they got to the arch, Walsh turned and put his hand on her arm.

“I’ve really enjoyed these past two weeks,” he said smiling. “Thanks for helping me get to know the neighbourhood.”

She smiled back. “No problem. I’m glad you’re feeling more at ho—” her words were cut off by his mouth as he leaned in suddenly to kiss her.

For a moment Emma was too astonished to react, then wild thoughts flooded her mind and she remained motionless, overcome by the emotions suddenly coursing through her. Walsh’s kiss was like the rest of him, pleasant but unremarkable, and all Emma could think about was Killian and the way he set her body alight with a simple brush of his lips on her forehead.

Panic gripped her. What if she could never feel with any other man what she felt with Killian? Walsh was the nicest man she’d met in a long time, and he left her completely cold. What if it was the same with everyone else?

What would she do when she lost Killian?

Emma had no doubt in her mind that she would lose him someday. She lost everyone—birth parents, foster parents, the baby she’d miscarried, even Neal, though she’d been glad to see the back of him, by the end. She’d developed such a fear of loss that she simply stopped getting close to people, deliberately holding anyone who she thought could become too important to her at arm’s length.

It was why she had pushed Killian away for so long, resisting her attraction to him, convincing herself that he was nothing more than a heavy drinking serial womaniser, even though she’d always known somewhere deep in her heart that he was far more than that.

And now, somehow, he had become the most important person in her life.

How could she ever survive without him?

Walsh ended the kiss and stepped back, smiling, seemingly unaware that Emma hadn’t responded in any way. “I have to go,” he said “but I’ll see you at Mary Margaret’s tomorrow.”

“Hmmmm? Oh, yeah, see you then,” said Emma absently. It wasn’t until several moments later that it occurred to her she should have told him off for kissing her, reminded him that there wasn’t anything between them but a very casual friendship. _Oh well, I’ll talk to him tomorrow_ , she thought, her mind still full of Killian.

Still in a slight daze, she turned around and caught sight of a familiar face staring intently at her. It was Milah, the woman from Swindon she’d met at the women’s shelter. Emma smiled and opened her mouth to say hello but before she could, Milah advanced on her, fury practically bristling under her skin.

“How could you?” she spat.

“How could I what?” asked Emma, dumbfounded. She’d always liked Milah and thought the feeling was mutual.

“How could you kiss that— that _person_?”

“Why shouldn’t I kiss someone?”

Milah’s eyes shot daggers at her.

“How could you kiss _that_ when you have Killian? How could you _do_ that to him?”

“What?” Confusion whirled in Emma’s mind, which she did _not_ need what with all the other thoughts simmering there. “How do you know about Killian and me? How do you know Killian at all?”

“Oh, Emma, we work at the same pub! Surely you knew that?” Milah huffed in exasperation. “Don’t you take _any_ interest in his life?”

 _That’s not fair_ , thought Emma, Killian’s life fascinated her and she couldn’t hear enough about it. She’d simply never connected Killian working at the pub with Milah working there. And Killian had never mentioned it, even though he knew she knew Milah.

A hot, prickly suspicion bloomed in her mind.

“Are you and Killian…” she waved her hand suggestively. “You know…”

Milah’s fury rose again. “You’ve got a bloody cheek asking me that, after what I just saw!” she hissed, then took several deep breaths and continued more calmly. “No, to answer your outrageous question, we’re just friends.” Emma couldn’t suppress a sigh of relief, and Milah’s eyes sparked viciously. “Oh, make no mistake, love, I would take him in a hot second if he’d have me. But he wouldn’t, because he’s in love with _you._ ”

Emma reeled, as her heart leapt into her throat and blood pounded in her ears.

“No, no he doesn’t… don’t be ridiculous… It’s just— it’s just sex with us,” she said, more to herself than to Milah. “Just convenience. Easier than going out for it, Killian said. He’s not ‘ _in love_ ’ with me.”

Milah caught Emma’s gaze and held it, her expression implacable.

“Oh, but he is,” she replied silkily. “He would do anything for you. Even agree to be your little sex toy, your dirty secret, and let you break his heart each time you fuck him and then shove him out the door.”

Emma was astonished. Was that really how Killian saw things between them?

Suddenly the fury seemed to drain from Milah, and she looked about to cry. “Killian is— he’s the best man I know, Emma. Please, please don’t hurt him.” She turned away to hide the tears in her eyes.

“Milah…” Emma felt terrible, but she was certain the other woman had to be mistaken. “I’m sure he doesn’t care enough… I couldn’t …”

Milah rounded on her again. “Of course you could, and you do! Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? He practically worships you and you could _destroy_ him. Please, I am begging you, don’t do it. If you don’t love him, you’ve got to tell him so. Tell him and then let him go; stop stringing him along if he will only ever be a convenient fuck to you. Give him the chance to find someone who can love him as he deserves, because he sure as hell doesn’t deserve the way you treat him.”

Emma’s head was spinning and she shook it, trying to clear it, trying to shake away Milah’s words. “He doesn’t love me, he doesn’t, he can’t,” she whispered. Milah sighed.

“Listen to me, Emma, if you want proof of how Killian feels about you, ask him what he does on Sunday afternoons.”

“What— what would that prove?”

“Just ask him. And if his answer means nothing to you, let him go.”

 

*.*.*.

 

When Killian arrived home that evening he let himself straight into Emma’s apartment with the key she’d given him. It was a small intimacy, the key, given only because in recent weeks he'd often come home from the pub after she’d already fallen asleep, exhausted from juggling both work and school, but it thrilled him nonetheless. It was another small sign that she wanted him around, that she wanted him close to her even just to sleep. She always awoke slightly when he got into bed, enough to snuggle into his arms before she fell asleep again, leaving him free to stroke her hair and whisper in her ear how much he loved her.

He found her sitting on her sofa, looking pensive, though she smiled brightly when she saw him.

“Hello, sweet,” he said, sitting down next to her and wrapping her in his arms, pressing a kiss in her hair. She snuggled into him with a contented sigh, and he let the warmth of her obvious if still unspoken affection wash over him.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Anything, love.”

“Where do you go on Sunday afternoons?”

He tried not to tense up. He’d known this question would come eventually, only hoped she was ready to hear the answer. “I have a job.”

“Another one?”

“This one is more of a volunteer role.”

“Really? What sort of volunteering?”

“I teach the adult literacy and life skills class at the community centre near your shelter.”

Emma blinked in astonishment. “Wait… you’re _that_ Dr Jones?”

“Aye.”

“But… you don’t just teach that class, you started it! How did I not know about this? The women who take that class love it! They love you.”

“I— didn’t really want you to know.”

“Why on earth not?”

“You had made it quite clear that you didn’t want anything to do with me, and I didn’t want you to think that I was only getting involved as a way to get close to you, to try to win you over.”

“So why _did_ you get involved?”

He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “When I came to the US I was adrift, still reeling from Liam’s death and my discharge from the Navy, and I had no idea what to do with my life, didn’t know how to fix what felt broken in me. Then one day you spoke civilly to me for the first time, and I could see that your usual daggers were sheathed because you were worried about something. You spoke of the women in the shelter who’d left abusive spouses but were struggling to find a job because they lacked basic reading and numeracy skills, and I thought, _there’s_ a problem I can actually fix. So I did. I got in touch with the centre director and offered my services."

“And you’ve been teaching the class for the past, what, nearly three years?”

“Aye. It’s been the saving of me, if I’m honest. I finally felt like I had a purpose and was putting my education to good use for once. ”

"But you teach at Columbia!”

“Indeed, but my students there don’t need _me_ , they’d do just as well with any other professor. The students in the literacy class, to them I’m actually making a difference.”

Emma heard what he was saying but couldn't quite trust it. She needed confirmation. “So you think a good use of an Oxford education is to teach reading skills to a handful of disadvantaged women in Lower Manhattan,” she challenged. 

“Yes, I do. My education may be posh, but as I’ve told you before, I spent the first twelve years of my life in a grim little corner of Bristol, near the shipyards where my father worked. My father was often drunk and Liam had to start working at fourteen so we’d have at least one steady income after my mother died. She was a librarian, and she taught me to read, and after she was gone I would still go to the library where she’d worked and escape into books. I don’t think it’s overly dramatic to say that reading is what allowed me to survive my childhood. It also equipped me for a place in a preparatory school, which then led to Oxford. If I hadn’t been able to read… well, I genuinely don’t know what would have become of me, but it’s unlikely that I would have ended up in any better situation than those who attend my class. Everyone, regardless of background, deserves to know the joy of a good book, and no one should suffer or be held back in life because their early education failed them.”

The strength of the conviction in his voice made Emma’s heart race. Although she had always been intensely attracted to him, with each new layer of his character that she uncovered that attraction somehow grew stronger. And this earnest, thoughtful layer he’d only recently begun to let her see, she thought that one may be her favourite.

“I don’t really know what to say,” she told him. “It’s incredible what you’ve done.”

He was quiet for a moment, battling with himself, then he seemed to reach a decision. He reached up and cupped her cheek, stroking his thumb across the dimple in her chin.

“It’s all because of you, Emma. Not only did you give me the idea, but ever since I met you, you’ve made me want to be better, to overcome my past and do something decent with my life. Even when I thought you hated me and there was no chance I’d ever get to touch you, I still wanted to be worthy of you, to be someone whom you could in other circumstances care for and value.”

Emma heard the words he didn’t say, and she knew that Milah had told the truth. Killian _was_ in love with her. The idea terrified her, but it was also intoxicating: that this gorgeous, brilliant, accomplished man thought that she, Emma Swan, orphan and foundling who had been abandoned by everyone she’d ever cared about, was worthy of his heart. That he seemed to think _he_ wasn’t worthy of _her_.

Her emotions whirled through her, complicated and confused, and she knew she would need some time alone to sort through them before she could properly deal with this revelation. But that could wait. In the meantime…

She slid onto his lap, her knees on either side of his hips, and buried her fingers in his hair, bringing their mouths together. He met her eagerly but the kiss was achingly gentle, their lips clinging before parting, tongues brushing with the lightest strokes. He tangled his hands in her hair, one at the back of her neck and the other just above her waist, and although he soon grew rock hard beneath the juncture of her thighs, neither of them wished to escalate the embrace. They kissed for what seemed like hours, drowning in the heat and wetness and throbbing tenderness, their desire building slowly, layer upon layer until it became too much to contain and she broke away. He attempted to chase her lips with his, not wanting the kiss to end, but she stood up and stepped back, her eyes locked on his, holding his gaze as she slowly stripped off her sweater and tossed it to the floor. His breathing was fast and uneven, his erection straining, but he remained motionless and silent, awaiting her next move.

Her jeans were next, followed by her undergarments, and soon she was naked before him, skin blushing pink and hair tumbling in golden waves down her shoulders and over her breasts.

His expression was reverent. “You’re so beautiful, Emma,” he breathed. “Inside and out. Every part of you is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You are the sun breaking over a storm-swept sea, and you warm me to the depths of my soul.”

Her heart clenched at his words and the sincerity in his voice, and she wished — _wished_ — she had his smooth facility with language. There was so much she wanted to say to him. Unable to vocalise her surging emotions, she simply held out her hand.

“Take me to bed, Killian,” she whispered.

He took her hand and stood up, pausing for a moment to cup her face and kiss her softly, then he scooped her up in his arms and headed for the bedroom.

Emma sighed into his shoulder. She _loved_ when he carried her.

He laid her gently on the bed then stepped back and undressed for her as she had for him. When he was naked she held out her arms to him and he sank into them, taking her mouth in a kiss that was as tender as their earlier ones but much deeper, his tongue stroking hers boldly, stoking the banked flames of her passion. She moaned and shifted beneath him, widening her legs as he settled between them, running her foot up his calf to his thigh. Her hands caressed him down his back to curve around his ass, pulling him more firmly against her as his hand stroked her, down her belly, over her hip, up her thigh. Their movements were like a dance, in perfect harmony and without words, and when Emma pulled back from the kiss to look into his eyes she could see that he understood she was ready. She felt an extra thrill as he thrust smoothly into her, the now familiar feeling of being filled and completed made more poignant by the way he _understood_ her. She had never felt so connected to another human being. He began to whisper in her ear as they moved together, words in a language that was unfamiliar to her, yet she _knew_ , beyond any doubt, what he was saying. She felt the tension building, tingling low in her belly, and she wrapped her arms and legs tightly around him, holding him close to her as she came, clenching her inner walls around him and moaning his name. He gasped at the tightness, thrusting once, twice more before he fell with her, burying his face in her hair.

“Oh, Emma,” he whispered, “I—” He bit back the words but she heard them nonetheless, and her last thought before she drifted into sleep was that she was nearly ready to hear them for real.

 

*.*.*.

 

Immediately after Killian awoke the next morning, opening his eyes to the glorious sight of sunlight falling across Emma’s face, illuminating her pale skin and mussed golden hair, he was gripped by both trepidation and hope. Last night… _Bloody hell, last night_ , he thought. He’d told Emma that he loved her, in every way but with the actual words, and she hadn’t run, hadn’t pushed him away. Instead she’d made love to him, so tenderly he’d thought his heart might burst. He hoped like hell she wouldn’t regret that this morning.

Her eyes fluttered open and she regarded him for a moment before breaking into a radiant smile. “Morning,” she said.

“Good morning, love. How do you feel?”

She stretched luxuriantly, like a cat. “Hungry,” she replied. “I want blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I’m going to try making them from scratch.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that, Swan? Remember what happened last time you went off-piste with the pancakes.”

“I know, but I’ve been practicing.” She rolled from the bed and went to her dresser, pulling out a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top. She dressed quickly then crawled back into bed, straddling him and kissing him deeply. He reached for her, but she eluded him, hopping off the bed again and heading for the door. “Hurry up,” she called over her shoulder, “I’m starving.”

“Be right there, love,” he said, lying back on the pillows and allowing his happiness to wash over him. _Maybe its going to be all right_ , he thought.

 

Emma practically danced into the living room, feeling so light and happy she could almost fly. Today she would take the plunge and ask Killian to stay, she thought. If he said yes she would cry off the barbecue and spend the day with him instead, until he had to go to his class. The thought of that class and the man who taught it suffused her with warmth and she leaned against the back of the sofa, a dreamy look on her face, pancakes momentarily forgotten. 

Killian was just emerging from the hallway, shirtless and still buttoning his jeans when there was a knock on the door.

“You expecting someone, love?”

“No,” said Emma, smiling at him, letting her fingertips graze his chest as she moved past him to the door. She opened it, and her mouth dropped open at the sight of the man on the other side. “Walsh,” she gasped in surprise.

“Hey, Emma!” he said cheerfully, taking her by the arm then leaning in and kissing her. She froze in horror. _Why_ had she not spoken to him yesterday, put a stop to this? Now Killian would think…

Walsh stepped back, smiling broadly. “I know it’s unexpected and I really should have called first, but I just thought we might do something together before the barbecue this afternoon. Maybe go for brunch, or at least coffee again?” he said. “That place we went yesterday was really good.”

Emma was achingly aware of Killian standing behind her, observing this damning scene. “Uh, Walsh, um, I’m sorry this really isn’t a good time,” she stuttered, unable to stop herself from turning to look at Killian. His body was tense, but his face was terrifyingly blank. Her heart twisted.

Walsh followed her gaze, taking in Killian’s mussed hair and lack of shirt, then darted back to Emma, noting her similar state of dishevelment and undress. Something dark and ugly flashed in his eyes but was gone in an instant, and he smiled again. “Well, never mind,” he said, “It was a long shot anyway. See you this afternoon, Emma.” He kissed her again, just a quick peck that left her no time to react, then turned to leave. Emma shut the door quickly and turned to face Killian.

 

Killian had thought once before that Emma had broken his heart, but that had been nothing, positively _nothing_ compared to the state of that organ now. He hurt so ferociously he could barely breathe, the pain fusing itself onto every cell of his body. Somewhere inside him was a faint voice screaming that there had to be an explanation, that Emma wouldn’t _do_ this, that she wouldn’t treat him so callously after everything they’d shared. But the darker part of his mind could see only another man’s lips and hands on her, and that she didn’t shove him away or knee him in the balls, as Killian knew his fierce Emma would do if the attentions were unwelcome. She was familiar with this man, wasn’t surprised when he kissed her, and the razor sharp edge of that betrayal cut Killian to the bone.

 _It’s not actually a betrayal, though, is it?_ a dark voice in his head taunted him. _She’s broken no promises. She said from the beginning that she just wanted you for sex._

He longed to wrap her in his arms and beg her to tell him it wasn’t true, that she had no one else in her life, and that the beautiful intimacy of the night before had been real and meaningful to her. But his heart was too raw, and he was too afraid that he might not like her answer. He felt himself shutting down, retreating, as he fixed his face into a sly smirk, shrugging into the old familiar playboy persona and holding it before him like a shield.

“Who was that, love?” he asked, keeping his voice steady with a tremendous effort. “Boyfriend?”

Her eyes were huge and she looked devastated. _Devastated at being caught out_ , whispered the dark voice. She also looked guilty, which devastated _him_.

“No!” she cried “Killian, no, he’s just a—”

Murderous fury rose up in him and he couldn’t stop himself from rounding on her, backing her up against the wall and barricading her with his body, his hands on either side of her head. “Don’t you bloody dare tell me he’s ‘just a friend,’” he snarled. “I have eyes, Emma. _Friends_ don’t kiss like that.”

She shook her head frantically. “No, he _is_ — I mean, he— I didn’t—”

Killian stepped back. “Don’t bother making up an explanation,” he said, “It’s none of my concern. You date whomever you wish.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes, delighting the dark impulses within him. He relished her pain, wanted her to ache, wanted her to feel even just a fraction of the anguish that was tearing him apart.

“But tell me, Emma,” he said, in a voice like silk and ice, closing in on her again, invading her space, tilting his hips into hers and leaning down to purr in her ear. “Does he know the truth about you? About what a filthy little trollop you are? How you invited a stranger into your home and begged him to fuck you, then kept him around to satisfy your insatiable little cunt? Does he know how you pant after my cock like a dockside whore?” He couldn’t believe the awful things he was saying, knew that once his temper had cooled he would hate himself for saying them, but he couldn’t stop. “Do you imagine he can satisfy you as I can? I’d wager not, from the looks of him. Tell me, do you get as wet for him as you do for me?”

 

Emma looked at Killian’s smirking face and for the fist time, she saw the man she’d once tried to convince herself he was— the smooth, calculating predator, hard and icy cold and _cruel_ , as different as it was possible to be from _her_ Killian, the warm, kind, funny, supportive man she loved so much.

_Wait… what?_

She was _not_ in love with Killian.

Was she?

Emma was suddenly terribly afraid that she was, and had been for some time. It was only now, when confronted with the very real prospect of losing him, that she was able to face her emotions and see them clearly. She loved Killian and she had ruined everything between them, broken the implicit trust that had always existed in their unconventional relationship; even though it had never been explicitly stated they had both known it was there.

She wanted to fling herself into his arms and beg him to forgive her, to hold him close and tell him how she adored him and admired him and wanted to be with him all the time, how even as he cut her with his taunts she still wanted him, that she knew the vicious cruelty of his words were just his attempt to protect himself.

But a part of her still resisted. It refused to allow her to lay herself that bare, to make herself so vulnerable to another person, even one she loved, and it was that part of her that took charge of her voice. “There’s more to a relationship than just sex, Killian,” it said, and Emma regretted the words instantly.

He recoiled as though she’d slapped him.

“Yes there is,” he said flatly, all traces of the smirk gone from his face, his eyes blank and empty. “And we don’t have it.” He turned and grabbed his wallet and keys from her side table, then headed for the door.

Emma’s heart felt like it was being ripped from her chest. _No, no, no!_ it screamed at her. _Stop him, bring him back!_

“Killian,” she called brokenly.

He turned to look at her, his hand on the doorknob, his face expressionless. “Goodbye, Emma,” he said, and then he was gone.

Emma stood for a moment, trying to absorb the shock of what had happened, of the rapid and violent way her happiness had been shattered into icy shards around her. Then she crumpled to the floor, curling herself into a tight ball and began to sob.

 

Across the hall, Killian closed his door behind him then swung around, pounding his fist into it until his knuckles were bloody and most of his anger was spent, leaving only the misery behind. He sank to the floor, dropping his head into his uninjured hand and feeling tears begin to prickle behind his eyelids. He found he lacked the strength or the will to hold them back, and for the first time in nearly thirty years, Killian Jones wept.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise there would be angst.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains descriptions of and references to sexual assault. If this is a trigger for you, please proceed with caution.

Emma lay on her floor, exhausted and spent, head and chest throbbing from crying so hard for so long. A glance at the clock told her it had been well over an hour. _This is why I have walls_ , she thought piteously, _Feeling hurts too much_. Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet and into the bathroom, bracing her hands on the sink and staring at her reflection. A ghoul stared back at her: a sunken-cheeked, tangle-haired woman with bleak and red-rimmed eyes. She felt wrung out and empty and hopeless, and she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Only one thing stopped her— Walsh. She couldn’t stand to have Walsh thinking they were a couple for a single day longer. With an almighty effort she pushed herself away from the sink and pulled off her clothes before stepping into the shower and turning the spray on as hot as she could take it. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was socialise, but if it killed her she was going to go to the damned barbecue and set him straight.

Arriving at David and Mary Margaret’s house in Brooklyn, she rang the doorbell and braced herself. She still looked awful, her face pale and eyes bloodshot, her hair limp, and she knew she couldn’t escape her friends’ inevitable concern.

Mary Margaret opened the door. “Emma! Great to see you! How are… you?” Mary Margaret trailed off as she got a good look at Emma’s face.

Emma forced a smile. “I’m fine. I’ve just had a rough morning. Is Walsh here?”

“Yeah, just arrived. He’s in the kitchen, I think.”

Emma went to the kitchen and found Walsh opening a beer. He smiled when he saw her and leaned in, but she was prepared this time, and dodged him. “Hey,” she said, “Can I talk to you in private?”

A look she didn’t entirely care for danced in his eyes. “Sure” he said eagerly. “Where do you want to go?”

Emma led him to the small office just off the living room. He leaned against the desk while she stood in a corner, twisting her hands, not sure where to start.

“Look, Walsh,” she said. “I like you, you know that, but I think you may have got the wrong idea about us. Like, that there’s an us. Because there isn’t.”

_Fuck, I am awful at this._

His expression darkened, the eager look in his eyes quenched. “What are you saying, Emma?”

“I’m saying I just want to be friends. I’m— I’m not really available for anything more.”

Walsh’s face twisted into a sneer. “I get it. You’re breaking up with me.”

Emma blinked, startled by the vitriol in his tone. “Um, no, I’m not breaking up with you because we were never dating.”

He stood, glaring at her. “We had meals together, went out with our friends, met for coffee, what did you think all that was?”

Emma felt helpless and frustrated. “I thought it was friendship!” she nearly shouted. “I thought you just wanted a friend to help you feel at home in a new city. If you’d actually _asked me_ for a date, I’d have told you I’m not interested.”

He stepped closer to her, and she resisted the urge to recoil. “Uh huh. Sure. You’re fucking friendzoning me. Of course. I took you out, treated you like a princess and then as soon as I start wanting something in return, you play the ‘just friends’ card. Fucking typical. Beautiful women don’t know how to appreciate a nice guy.”

Emma was beginning to get angry. “‘Something in return?’” she repeated, a dangerous note in her voice.

Walsh ignored her, caught up in his rant. “I probably should have expected this, after this morning. It’s that other guy, isn’t it, the one who was at your apartment, who you’re obviously fucking. The one who looks like a hipster pirate. Women are so stupid, they always go for the good looking asshole.”

Yep, she was definitely angry now. “Killian is anything but an asshole! He’s kind and sweet and better than _you_ in every way!”

Walsh’s face contorted in fury, and he grabbed her arms and pulled her into him. “Well, he’s not here now, is he? And you fucking owe me, you bitch.” He crushed his mouth on hers, shoving her against the wall and slamming her head against it so hard she was dazed for several moments. He grabbed her breast in one hand and squeezed it painfully, then brought the other up between her legs, rubbing her roughly through her jeans. Emma’s head was ringing and she felt dizzy and sick, but when she felt him undoing her jeans and shoving his hand inside them, adrenaline surged through her and she was suddenly laser focused. He was tall, and despite his slender build stronger than she, but Emma hadn’t spent years chasing down men who skipped bail and cheated on their wives for nothing, and she knew how to deal with scumbags.

She raked her fingernails down his face, and when he pulled back with a snarl, caught him with an uppercut to the chin. He stumbled backwards and she kicked him, nailing him square in the balls with the heel of her boot. He crumpled to the floor, moaning and clutching his groin, and she stomped her boot into his stomach for good measure.

“I do not _owe you_ anything, you miserable prick,” she snarled. “Not my time and _definitely_ not my body. I am with Killian —she didn’t hesitate on the lie because she would _make it true_ —, and even if I weren’t I’d have no interest in a man who thinks sex is a reward for good behaviour. I’m not a commodity to be traded, and neither is any other woman, and you’d better remember that or I will hunt you down and fucking castrate you.”

Resisting the urge to kick him in the face with what she thought was admirable restraint, she spun around and found herself face to face with Mary Margaret and David, both wearing expressions of shock and horror.

“What the hell is this?” shouted David.

Emma wanted to cringe, suddenly flashing back to all the incidents in her foster homes over the years, when the boys in the house had tried to grope her and she’d had to fight them off, remembering the foster parents and how they’d never believed she hadn’t done something to provoke it. What if David and Mary Margaret thought the same? Their censure would be crippling. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but before she could David had charged past her and hauled Walsh up off the floor, slamming him back against the wall as Walsh had done to Emma.

“You dare to come into my home and assault one of my guests, one of my _friends_?” he roared. “You bastard, I should wipe the fucking floor with you.” He let go of the other man’s shirt and stepped back. “Fortunately, Emma already took care of that,” he sneered. “Now get out of my house, and don’t let me catch you near anyone I care about ever again.” Still cradling his groin, Walsh fled.

David turned to Emma, his eyes showing nothing but care and concern. He put his hand on her shoulder. “You all right?” he asked.

She nodded, though she was still trying to take in what had just happened, the way David had taken her side without question. Emma turned to Mary Margaret, who was still standing in the doorway, looking shocked. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Mary Margaret shook her head. “For what?”

“Um, beating up your friend?”

“Are you kidding me, Emma? He is _not_ my friend,” she spat, looking revolted, “Not after this. I guess I didn’t know him as well as I thought. I’m the one who’s sorry, honey. I can’t believe I tried to get you to date that… that _creep_.” Emma’s mouth fell open in astonishment. “Creep” was extremely strong language for Mary Margaret. Before she could reply, Mary Margaret rushed forward and Emma found herself sandwiched between her friends as they engulfed her in a warm, supportive hug. She felt tears spring to her eyes. Again. Despite their long friendship, she’d always kept David and Mary Margaret at a distance just as she did everyone, but they’d still had her back without question, and it made her want to weep.

 _Because I’m a freaking leaky faucet today,_ she thought.

Mary Margaret pulled back from the hug just enough to look closely at Emma’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

Emma wasn’t sure how to answer. Physically she was fine, but now that she’d dealt with Walsh and the adrenaline from their confrontation was beginning to drain from her, her heart hurt worse than ever. _Killian’s gone, Killian’s gone, Killian’s gone,_ it screamed at her with every beat. Slowly, she shook her head. “I— no. I’m not,” she said.

“Is it because of this Killian?” ventured Mary Margaret tentatively.

Emma nodded.

Mary Margaret knew she’d need to tread lightly. She loved Emma dearly, but the other woman had never been an easy person to be friends with. Now for the first time Mary Margaret detected a chink in Emma’s armour, and she didn’t want to scare Emma off by pushing too hard against it. “Do you want to talk about it? she asked hesitantly.

Emma was silent for a moment, and Mary Margaret held her breath. Finally, Emma nodded, her face crumpling and tears beginning to pour down her cheeks. “Yeah,” she sobbed, “I do.”

Mary Margaret hugged her tightly, shooting David a significant look. “Let’s sit down, sweetie,” she said.

 

*.*.*.

 

Killian recalled with a wry sort of nostalgia the days when getting lost on an epic bender was as simple as strolling into a pub with a wodge of cash and letting the details take care of themselves. But he was older now and had responsibilities, and drinking himself into a stupor required forward planning.

He managed somehow to pull himself together enough to make it to his adult literacy class, though he would never be able to say for certain exactly how. He moved in a sort of daze, ruthlessly suppressing his tumultuous emotions and propelled by the thought that the class needed him. He desperately needed someone to need him. He would be forever grateful to his lovely students for not mentioning his bloodied hand or his red eyes, and for not pressing him when he simply said that he was feeling a bit out of sorts.

On the way home he stopped at a liquor store and bought a case of rum.

“Having a big party?” asked the cashier, flirtatiously. She was a pretty girl, he noted, if far too young for his tastes.

He managed to smile at her, though it felt ghastly on his face. “Something like that.”

“Well, have fun,” she said, and he nodded.

Arriving home, he locked his door securely and set the case on his coffee table. Ten minutes later, he turned off his phone, having sent messages to both his jobs informing them that he had the flu and would be out for at least a week, and arranged cover for his classes and his shifts. Responsibilities dealt with, he sat back, sighed heavily, and released the mental hold on his thoughts he’d somehow managed to maintain for the best part of five hours. With that, the images came flooding into his mind, each hard on the heels of the last. Emma standing naked before him, her green eyes soft; Emma holding out her arms to him as she lay stretched out on her bed, wrapping them tightly around him as he took her, moaning his name as she came. Emma standing in her doorway in another man’s arms, kissing _him_. Going for coffee with him, to a barbecue with their shared friends. That cut far deeper even than the kiss. She had spent time with the man, shared her day with him, introduced him to her friends. Emma was happy to date, it appeared, she just didn’t want to date Killian.

Another memory floated to the surface, a far older one, of a beautiful woman in an Oxford hospital, her eyes cold as she regarded him. 

_ "Did you think I loved you, Killian? That's sweet. You're a delightful lay, of course, but not good for much else. My husband is second cousin to the Duke of Westminster, naturally I don't intend to leave him. Run along now, there's a good lad. Probably best if you leave Oxford for good." _

It was ever thus, thought Killian. Emma was in good company.

 Drowning in misery and regret, he dove to the bottom of his rum bottle and didn’t emerge for three days.

 

He was finally dragged from the fog of rum by insistent pounding at his door.

“Killian! Killian answer this bloody door this instant or I will kick it in, don’t think that I won’t!”

It was Milah.

He staggered to the door and opened it, leaning against it for support. He wasn’t certain his legs could hold him.

She took in his haggard appearance, the sunken and bloodshot eyes, the pale and sallow skin, and her face twisted in sympathy.

“Oh, love,” she said.

Something in her tone caught his attention, and he jerked upright.

“Did you know?” he croaked, voice rough from disuse.

Milah gave a small nod. “I saw them in the park. I’m so sorry.”

Killian’s heart twisted, but he needed the whole story. “Saw them doing what?”

“Kissing.”

He nodded, trying unsuccessfully not to conjure up images of Emma in the bastard’s arms, her mouth on his, out in a public place because _he_ wasn’t a secret. He practically dove for the rum bottle to blot them out.

“You should go,” he said to Milah, “I’m in no fit state for company.”

“If you think I’m going to let you drink yourself to death over that pestilential little bitch—”

“Don’t call her that!” he snapped.

“Very well then, should I call her a cu—”

“NO! I said more than enough terrible things for both of us.” The vile, hateful words he’d spoken to her rang ceaselessly in his ears, and no amount of rum had yet been successful in drowning them out. He took another swig. _Yet._

“But she…”

“ _No_ , I said. She did nothing wrong. This is my fault. I read too much into meaningless things, built castles in the air. We never made any promises. She was always free to date, to do whatever she liked. I have no one to blame for this but myself.”

Milah stared disbelievingly at him for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s no fool like a lovesick fool, I guess. But you’ve wallowed enough, my lad. Go have a shower and put on some clean clothes, I’m going to make you a bacon sandwich.”

Killian’s stomach revolted at the thought of food. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate. “I can’t—”

“You can, and you will. You need to absorb some of that alcohol.”

“If I absorb it, how will it keep me drunk?”

She didn’t take his bait. “I told you, you’re not drinking yourself to death, not while I’m around to stop it. You will survive this, Killian.”

He smirked bitterly. “Of course I will. If there’s one thing I am, it’s a survivor. But I do sometimes wonder what the bloody fuck I’m surviving _for_.”

Milah rounded on him, eyes blazing with fury and a hint of fear. “Don’t you dare say such things, Killian Jones!” she shouted. “Don’t you dare even think them! There are too many people who care about you and need you for you to let one prissy blonde do your head in like this!”

“Don’t—”

“Don’t call her that, yes, I know. I know you love her. Once I even thought she deserved it. But right now I am too bloody angry at her to be nice. She treated you abominably, from beginning to end, and you may not hate her for it but I absolutely do, and I reserve the right to say so. Now go, have your shower, your sandwich will be ready by the time you’re done.”

 

*.*.*.

 

Emma jerked awake and immediately groaned. Her head was tilted at an awkward angle and she had one arm trapped beneath her, gone limp and useless. She sat up slowly, shaking the dead arm with her other hand until she felt the painful pinpricks of sensation that heralded the return of blood flow to the limb. She rubbed the crick in her neck and rolled her shoulders, whimpering a little. Nearly a week of sleeping on the sofa had done her joints no favours. Her sofa was old and hideously uncomfortable, but as much as she hated it, her bed was far worse. A thousand memories of Killian lived there, woven indelibly into the sheets that still smelled of him. Every night she ventured into her bedroom, drawn inexorably by the aching emptiness in her chest, and curled up with his pillow, letting the familiar scent surround her and the precious memories flood back until the ache became too unbearable and she stumbled out of the bedroom to collapse on the sofa and cry herself to sleep.

Having tended to her various aches, Emma picked up her phone and dialled Killian’s number. His voicemail picked up immediately, and she nearly flung the device across the room in frustration. His phone was still off. He didn’t answer calls or texts or emails, and whenever she snuck silently from her apartment and pressed her ear to his door, she detected no sounds from within. Where the fuck _was_ he? She was desperately worried, knowing his self-destructive tendencies, and in her darkest moments she couldn’t fight off terrifying images of him dead in a gutter somewhere, or stabbed in a bar fight, or a hundred other scenarios that ended with him maimed or killed. “I just want to know you’re all right, you jackass,” she shouted at the phone.

She wished with every fibre of her being that she could just talk to him. Just explain. Once his temper had burned out he would listen. He would understand, she knew he would. The last words he had spoken to her still rang in Emma’s ears, and although she knew that they should hurt her, they actually gave her and odd sort of hope. When Killian was in pain he lashed out viciously, trying to inflict what he was feeling on the one who’d caused it. He couldn’t have been so cruel, she reasoned, if he hadn’t been so badly hurt and he couldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t cared. That he had cared enough to want to hurt her so deeply was the notion that Emma clung to. No one could just turn off that kind of emotion, especially not someone who felt things as intensely as Killian. He must still love her, she thought, he _had_ to.

And anyway, she taunted herself, where was the lie? He’d spun the facts in a nasty way with his choice of words, but the things he’d said were all true. She _had_ begged him to fuck her when he was basically a stranger, then had been unable either to fully let him in or to completely let him go; even as she had kept him at a distance emotionally in bed she’d held nothing back. “Panting after his cock” was probably an understatement, she thought dryly, she had no restraint at all when it came to him.

Not only had she used him for sex, she had continued to insist that sex was all they had between them even when it became obvious that he wanted more, felt more. He’d demonstrated his love in a million small ways and she had pretended she didn’t see them, pretended that she didn’t feel the same. And then she had dated —for all intents and purposes— another man, one who wasn’t capable of making her feel even a fraction of what she felt with Killian. A man who was _safe_. Until he turned out to be a scum-sucking, misogynistic, abusive shitstain, that is.

And now her beautiful, loving, brilliant, _darling_ Killian was out there somewhere thinking she preferred _Walsh_ to him.

_Fuck, I’m such a jerk._

Emma couldn’t bear the thought of it. Even if Killian could never forgive her, she needed him to know the truth, needed to find some way to tell him that she had only ever wanted him.

She needed to find Milah.

 

*.*.*.

 

It didn’t take long. Emma was good at finding people, and the shelter had a record of Milah’s first forwarding address. Three hours after she began looking, Emma was standing in front of Milah’s door, mentally preparing herself. She had a feeling this was not going to go smoothly.

She knocked. Milah answered the door wearing the nastiest expression Emma had ever seen on a human face, and she hunted assholes for a living.

“What the fuck do you want?” hissed Milah.

“Look, I get that you hate me, but I swear it was all just a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding? That’s the best you can do?”

“Killian got the wrong idea—”

“About what? About you kissing another man right in front of him? Or thinking that you cared about him? Which of those ideas was wrong?”

“About the other man! I didn’t kiss him— I mean, I did, but it wasn’t— I didn’t mean— Oh, damn it, I just need to talk to Killian. Do you know where he is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Well, that’s a very different question.”

“Milah, please, I need to see him, I need to explain. Please.” Emma felt her face begin to crumple and she knew she was about to cry again, though it hardly seemed possible that she could have any tears left at this point.

Milah’s expression softened ever so slightly, though she still regarded Emma through narrowed eyes.

“He doesn’t blame you, you know,” she said “He blames himself. Even after everything, he won’t hear a single word against you. And trust me, I’ve said many.” She looked at Emma almost sorrowfully. “People spend years searching for a love like that,” she said. “Lifetimes. Most never find it. But you, oh, you just throw it away like it’s nothing.”

Emma couldn’t hold the tears back any longer, her heart cracking anew at the thought of Killian defending her after the way she’d hurt him. “I didn’t mean to throw it away!” she sobbed. “I fucked up and I want to fix it.”

“Do you truly mean that?”

“ _Yes._ I love him. I never wanted to hurt him, but I— I was so worried about protecting my own heart that I forgot about his.”

Milah stared fixedly at her for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. “He’s at his place.”

“But I tried—”

“He spent most of the past week passed out in a puddle of rum, so if you went looking for him then he probably didn’t hear you. I dragged him here two days ago and sobered him up, but he went home this morning and I imagine now he’s packing.”

“Packing?”

“Yup.” Milah’s eyes glinted with malice. “To move out. You’d better hurry if you want to catch him before he goes.”

Emma spun on her heel and was about to break into a run when she suddenly froze and then turned back.

“What if he doesn’t forgive me?” she asked, voice small.

Milah sneered. “He will. He loves you so much he’d forgive you anything.”

 

*.*.*.

 

When Emma arrived home she could see that Killian’s door was ajar. Cautiously, she approached it, pushing it open further, then stood in the doorway for a moment, observing. She realised she had never actually been in his apartment before. He had always come to hers. Just another way she had demonstrated how little interest she had in him outside of her bedroom, she thought sorrowfully.

His place was sparsely decorated, just a sofa and a coffee table and a TV in the living room, though the rug that lay beneath them was extraordinary. Thick and soft-looking, intricately patterned and boldly coloured, it seemed foreign and somehow mysterious, like it had come from some exotic land far away. It probably had, she she thought. Killian had been all around the world with the navy, after all. He must have some souvenirs.

And then of course there were the books. Hundreds of them, one entire wall lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Many of the books looked ancient, bound in frayed cloth and crumbling leather, well read and well loved. She wondered how many of them were from this century, how many were even in English.

Killian was sitting on the floor, dressed casually in his grey henley and black sweatpants, surrounded by stacks of books and packing boxes. He held a large book open on his lap, leafing through it and muttering to himself in a language Emma didn’t recognise, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration, glasses perched on his nose. He was so gorgeous, so precious, and Emma’s heart soared at the sight of him. She’d missed him _so much_.

“Killian,” she whispered.

He looked up sharply. “Swan,” he said. For a moment something raw and fierce flashed in his eyes, but he quickly masked it.

“You’re moving,” she said. _Nice one, Captain Obvious_.

“Aye.”

“Where?”

“Uptown. I need to be closer to Columbia if I’m to work there full time.”

“You took the job?”

“I did. I decided I needed to stop being so self-indulgent and focus on my career. It’s been three years since Liam’s death, long past time I pulled myself together. He’d be ashamed of me.” Killian shut his book and placed it gently in a box, then removed his glasses and hooked them into the open neck of his shirt.

Emma swallowed hard, resisting the urge to pounce on him. Those glasses were ridiculously sexy. “What about the literacy class?” she asked.

“I’ll be continuing that. It’s no problem to come down here once a week. I’m not moving to Mars, or even as far as Yonkers, which would of course be worse.”

She tried to chuckle at the lame joke, but the weight in her chest was too heavy. “But I won’t see you anymore,” she said, so quietly he could barely hear. 

He regarded her with an unreadable expression. “I’d say that’s for the best, wouldn’t you?”

Emma tried desperately to contain the panic rising inside her. He looked so remote and resolute, and she knew she needed to do something quickly or she would lose all hope of him forever. With a massive effort, she forced words past the lump in her throat. “No, I wouldn’t. I— Killian, I need to tell you about Walsh—”

He cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand. “I don’t need to hear it, Swan.”

“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “Please, just listen.”

He hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well, but make it quick. I have friends coming to help me pack, they’ll be here any moment.”

She nodded, the time pressure actually helping her to get the words out.

“Walsh was a friend of my friend Mary Margaret’s. He recently moved to New York and she asked me to go out for dinner with him along with her and her husband. She asked it as a favour, and she’s a good friend so I agreed. I told her I didn’t want it to be a date and she said fine, but I don’t know if she didn’t tell him that or if he misunderstood some other way or what but he seemed to think— I mean, he didn’t act like it was a date, but he must have thought it was. Anyway, that nighthe asked me to show him around the neighbourhood, and I did, and then he offered lunch to say thank you and then it just kinda became a thing somehow, but I _never_ thought of it as dating. I mean he never actually asked me out. If he had, I’d have said no. I thought I was just being nice, being his friend when he was new in town. Then last Saturday we were in the park and he kissed me out of nowhere, and I was so surprised and… sort of at a loss what to do, then he left before I could tell him he’d got the wrong idea. I thought it would be fine, that I could talk to him at the barbecue, but then he came here and kissed me again and you saw it, and then everything just turned to shit so fast. I’m so sorry, Killian, and I understand why you’re angry, but I need you to know that I’m not with him and I never was.”

Killian’s face was still impassive, but his eyes seemed warmer. “And does _he_ know that?”

“He does now. I went to the barbecue to set him straight and he tried to rape me, and —”

“ _He tried to what?!_ ” Killian roared, surging to his feet. He took two steps towards her before jerking to an abrupt halt and clenching his fists at his sides, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he seethed.

“Rape me." She could see the horror and concern behind the anger in his eyes, and hastened to deflect it. "Don't worry, I—”

"Don't _worry?_ Swan—”

"I said don't worry! It's fine, I took care of it.”

 

He gaped at her, trembling with fury. She looked completely calm, as though she hadn’t just told him she’d been violently assaulted. “You ‘took care of it?’” he repeated.

“Yeah. I punched him and then kicked his balls out through his ass.” Her tone was grimly satisfied.

Killian had the strangest urge to laugh. _This_ was his Emma, his tough lass who took no shit from anyone. _This_ was what he had expected to see last week at her door. He almost felt sorry for this Walsh.

Almost. Mostly he wanted to turn the bastard inside out for daring to lay a finger on her. Sternly he reminded himself that Emma wasn’t his to defend, not even if she required defending, which clearly she did not. The pain around his heart had eased a little upon hearing that she hadn’t been dating anyone else while sleeping with him, but there was still the small matter of her not being in love with him, and the fallout from their fight.

He took a deep breath to calm his raging bloodlust and for the first time since she’d appeared in his doorway looked at her properly. Despite her habitual assertive stance she looked exhausted and almost lost. He longed to take her in his arms and hold her, stroke her hair and tell her everything would be all right, but he knew that would be a lie. Once he moved away and she was gone from his life nothing would ever be right again.

Killian didn’t want to go, but he knew he couldn’t stay. They couldn’t go back to their old arrangement, and he couldn’t survive living across the hall from her if he was unable to see her and touch her. He knew that eventually she would find someone she could care about, start to date for real, and that would end him. He had to cut his losses and get out now, while he still could.

But before he left he had his own apologies to make. The least he could do was ensure that things between them ended cleanly and without acrimony. “Since we’re clearing the air, love, allow me to apologise for what I said to you. It was unforgivable, but I want you to know I regret every syllable and I didn’t mean it.”

“You did mean it,” she replied. “Maybe not those exact words, but everything you said was true. I did all those things.”

“Swan—”

“No, I did. I— have a hard time with relationships, because of my past. Sex is easier, so that’s what I tend to stick with.”

He nodded, heart twisting in sympathy. “I understand.”

They stood staring at each other for a drawn-out moment, the words that still remained unspoken forming an insurmountable barrier between them.

 

Emma knew that she needed to speak, needed to tell him how she felt. Even with the Walsh misunderstanding cleared up, he still thought that he had meant nothing to her except sex. She needed to tell him that that had never been true, that she had been powerfully drawn to him from the start and had fallen in love with him almost as soon as he’d touched her. She’d just been too stubborn and too scared to admit it.

But the words wouldn’t come, and she wanted to scream in frustration. _Why_ couldn’t she ever say how she felt, even now, when the consequences of not speaking were too awful to contemplate? What would it take to loosen her tongue?

She’d told Milah she loved Killian. Why couldn’t she tell Killian himself?

When she’d said the words to Milah, she had been thinking about him, about how he had stood up for her to his friend despite how she’d treated him and without the slightest hint of reciprocation from her. He’d always been so staunchly on her side. She thought about that now, and about how happy she always felt when he was near, how they laughed together, the way they could understand each other without words.

He was turning away from her, saying something about how his friends would be there soon and he had to pack. She felt her opportunity slipping away, and as he turned his back she had a sudden terrifying vision of what her life would be like if he were gone from it forever.

Empty. And pointless. And if he loved her the way she loved him, then his would be the same. She _couldn’t_ allow that to happen. She closed her eyes and gathered her strength and _forced_ the words to come.

“I love you,” she burst out, then sighed in relief. _Finally_.

He spun around, his eyes wide, mouth dropping open, eyebrows attempting to merge with his hairline.

“ _What?!_ ”

“I love you,” she repeated, the words coming more easily the second time. “I’m so sorry for hurting you. I was trying to protect myself by denying what I feel, but I don’t want to do that anymore. I love you, Killian, and I want— I want things to be real between us.”

He closed his mouth and swallowed hard, his eyes still wide as he tried to process what he was hearing. 

“Real how?” he croaked.

She shifted her feet and shrugged. “Like, you know, I want to date you. Go out for dinner, hold hands in the park. PDA on the subway, all that stupid sappy stuff.” She smiled hesitantly. “It won’t feel stupid if it’s with you.”

 

Killian felt dazed and off balance, and he had a momentary mad notion that perhaps he’d slipped through a hole in spacetime and ended up in another dimension, one where Emma not only loved him but was able to say so. He looked at her searchingly. There was hesitancy in her manner, and a hint of fear, but no trace of doubt. She meant it. She loved him.

He felt himself moving towards her, taking her face in his hands. Her green eyes shimmered with tears that matched the ones beginning to slide down his cheeks.

“Oh, Emma,” he whispered. “My beautiful, my darling Emma, I love you so very much.”

The joy in her eyes and the tears on her cheeks were the last things he saw before he kissed her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who posts comments on these chapters. I appreciate them so much and get a little warm tingly feeling every time they appear in my inbox. I'm really new to fanfic, and hearing that people are enjoying what I write is so encouraging!   
> I've taken the advice of several people and signed up for Tumblr, but am still not entirely certain how best to use it, so please come say hello and give me some people to follow. I'm @profdanglaisstuff  
> Now please enjoy this bit of fluff and some more of Killian's backstory.

Killian had never spent days wandering in a desert, lost and near death, only to stumble on an oasis full of clear water and nourishing fruits, but he was certain he knew exactly what that felt like. It felt like Emma in his arms after a week without her, a week of believing that she was lost to him forever, that he would never touch her again. The feel of her mouth on his was an elixir swirling through his body, seeping into the cracks in his heart and beginning to heal them. He wanted to worship her and ravage her in equal measure, and without quite realising how it had happened he found he had backed her up against the wall, one hand in her hair and the other under her shirt, snapping open her bra and cupping her breast, caressing her nipple with his thumb. Emma’s hands had not been idle either; one was fisted in his hair while the other stroked his back under his shirt, fingernails raking lightly across his shoulders. She hummed in pleasure in that way he had missed so desperately and wrapped her leg around his waist and he growled, grabbing her other leg and hoisting her up, driving their hips together and pinning her to the wall. She moaned her approval, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and tilting her head, changing the angle of the kiss so they could devour each other’s mouths, tongues tangling and stroking.

_Ravaging it is, then_ , thought Killian, and—

“Oi, mate, get a room!”

_Bloody hell._

Killian broke the kiss and turned his head to see Will, Robin, and Milah standing in the doorway. Will and Robin looked amused, Milah grimly satisfied. The urge to murder rose up in him. He loved his friends dearly and was grateful they had agreed to help him move, and he wanted them out of his apartment _right now_.

“This _is_ my room. Piss off,” he growled at them.

“Now is that any way to talk to a man who’s taken valuable time out of his Saturday to help you out?” asked Will, folding his arms.

“I had to swap my shift at the pub to be here,” Robin reminded him. “I’d say at the very least that merits an introduction to the lass who has you so distracted that you forgot we were coming, wouldn’t you agree, Will?”

“I would, Robin.”

Milah simply stood in implacable silence. 

Killian sighed. Emma had buried her face in his shoulder, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You all right, Swan?” She nodded.

He wanted to whisk her away to some far-off place where they could be entirely alone and talk about everything that had just happened, then make love until they were both too exhausted to move. But he could sense Emma’s slight withdrawal and her embarrassment at the situation so he gently detangled himself from her, setting her on her feet and stepping away, stifling a groan at the loss of contact. He turned to face his friends, angling his body to shield Emma from their sight long enough for her to straighten her clothes and regain some composure, knowing that his loose sweats were doing absolutely nothing to conceal his erection but caring not a whit. _They_ had intruded on _him_ , and if what they found made them uncomfortable, they could bloody well deal with it or leave. Never mind that he had asked them to come, had left his door open expressly so they could walk right in.

He felt Emma at his elbow and turned to look at her, noting with relief that she seemed calm and in control. “Swan, these are my friends Will and Robin, and you know Milah,” he said, making the introductions grudgingly. “Chaps, this is Emma. She’s…” he paused, not quite sure how to finish the sentence. They hadn’t had a chance to discuss what exactly they were. They hadn’t had a chance to discuss a lot of things.

“I’m taking him out to dinner tonight,” said Emma, finishing the sentence for him. Her face was smiling but her eyes were daring them to make a thing of it. When they remained silent, her smile widened slightly and she leaned up to kiss Killian’s cheek. He snaked his arm around her waist, wanting her close, even for just a moment. “Pick me up at eight,” she whispered in his ear, “I’ll take care of the rest.” She slipped from his arms and he shoved his hands in his pockets to stop them from snatching her back.

“Nice to meet you, Will and Robin,” Emma was saying as she moved to the door. “Milah.” She nodded at all three and then she was gone. Killian watched until her door closed behind her, suppressing the urge to snarl in frustration.

“Well, I suppose you lot had better come in,” he grumbled.

 

At precisely eight o’clock that evening, Emma heard the knock on her door. “Right on time,” she muttered, trying to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She’d spent ages that afternoon deciding what to wear and what to do with her hair. It was an odd feeling to be going on a first date with a man who had already seen her naked, who was as intimately acquainted with her body as she was herself. She wanted to wear something that would surprise him, something that reflected how he made her feel. He’d always seen her in boldly coloured, form-fitting dresses, assertive and deliberately sexy. For this date, she wanted something different. After trying and rejecting a dozen different options, she had dug to the very back of her closet and found the perfect thing, a dress she’d bought on a whim years before but had never worn. No occasion had ever seemed quite right. It was a pale pink silk with wide straps and a slightly shirred bodice leading to a skirt that fell in soft folds to mid-calf. The fabric was light and floaty and it swished when she walked. Emma felt like a princess in it. She’d done her hair in a double French braid that started high on both sides of her head then curled around her neck to fall over one shoulder, ending in soft curls that brushed the tops of her breasts. Freshwater pearls dangled from her ears and wrist, thirtieth birthday presents from Mary Margaret, also unworn until that night. On her feet were tall, strappy sandals and her toenails were a deep wine red.

Taking a deep breath, she smoothed the front of her dress and opened the door, then tried not to melt into a puddle. Killian stood before her, looking somehow more handsome than she’d ever seen him in a dark grey suit and a shirt of the same burgundy hue as her toenail polish. The shirt was open at the neck, of course, and adorned with a tonal paisley pattern similar to the one on the shirt she’d ripped off him their first night together. His hair was tidier than usual, making her itch to muss it up with her fingers.

_Later,_ she promised herself.

He looked elegant and slightly dangerous, though she imagined that last might be down to the way he was devouring her with his eyes. “You look stunning, Swan,” he said.

Emma blushed and shifted her weight. “Thanks. You look…”

He grinned. “I know.”

She barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

He withdrew his hand from where it had been tucked behind his back and held it out to her. “This is for you, love.”

She caught her breath. On his palm was a tiny, intricate carving of a swan, about the size of a golf ball and so detailed that she could make out individual feathers, along with what she could swear was a glint of mischief in its eye.

Killian was looking a bit hesitant. “I brought you flowers before,” he said, “I wanted something different.”

_To mark the transition_ , she thought, _Like I wanted to do with my dress_.

Emma held her breath as she took the swan from him. It was exquisite. She stroked it gently with her fingertip.

“It’s alabaster,” said Killian. “Will made it.”

Emma looked up in surprise. “Will your friend who I met earlier?”

“Aye. He’s a mouthy git, but talented.”

“You’re not going to tell me he did this in an afternoon?”

“No.” Killian scratched behind his ear. “I asked him for it some time ago.”

“You did?”

He looked at her intently. “I’ve been hoping for rather a while now that the day might come when you’d accept more from me than flowers.”

Heart overflowing, she stepped forward and kissed him. The kiss was light and gentle, and left them both smiling foolishly. “I love it,” she said, stroking his cheek, “I love you.” She marvelled at how those words she thought she’d never be able to say were now flowing so easily from her lips. It was as though by forcing them out she’d burst a hole in the dam of her emotions, and now she couldn’t stem the flood.

He relaxed almost imperceptibly. “And I love you,” he replied.

Emma tucked the tiny swan into her purse, wanting to keep it close. She smiled at Killian. “Are you ready?”

He stepped back and held out his arm. “Lead the way, Swan. I’ve no idea where we’re going.”

 

Their destination turned out to be a tiny bistro tucked away in a quiet corner of Little Italy. They were greeted at the door by a tall man with a fringe of white hair and a white beard, and a thick Italian accent. He greeted Emma warmly and she smiled and allowed him to kiss her enthusiastically on each cheek. “Marco, this is Killian,” she said. “Killian, Marco. Five years ago, I helped him find his missing son. It was one of my first cases as a P.I.”

“Hello, Marco,” said Killian warmly, offering his hand. “Is this your place?”

“Ah, no, I make furniture. This place, it is my cousin’s,” Marco replied. “Pietro. But Emma, she is welcome here anytime. The whole family is forever grateful to her for what she did for my son. There is always a table for her, even when she calls for it at the last minute, ah?” He chuckled, and Emma looked slightly abashed. “Please, come in, sit down. Pietro will bring you the wine.”

Marco showed them to a small table in a candlelit corner. “Pietro doesn’t have a menu,” explained Emma, looking a bit anxious. Not everyone liked Pietro’s style of restaurant. “He makes whatever he feels like making on the day, from whatever he finds at the local market, and that’s what he serves. It’s different every day and no one knows beforehand what it’s going to be. You kinda just sit back and eat whatever appears in front of you.”

“Sounds marvellous,” said Killian, taking her hand and stroking his thumb across her knuckles, “I’m always up for an adventure, love, including a culinary one.” Emma beamed, squeezing his hand in return.

Their conversation flowed easily, gradually calming Emma’s butterflies. She’d always found Killian easy to talk to, and was immensely relieved that confessing their feelings hadn’t made things awkward or stilted. Entirely the opposite, in fact, she realised; everything she’d been holding back for fear of allowing too much intimacy to develop between them she could now let loose, knowing he would welcome it. The freedom was almost dizzying.

Later, Emma would have little memory of what she ate or what they talked about, recalling only that it was delicious and Killian kept her laughing the entire evening, and she couldn’t call to mind another time in all her life when she’d felt so happy. Then as they were lingering over their coffee long after the other diners had left, she discovered that he knew how to dance.

“Really?” she laughed, as he twirled her around the empty tables to the strains of the violin music being played by a busker just outside the restaurant’s door. “I suppose you also studied ballroom dancing at Oxford?”

“Not as such, but I did attend a number of balls there.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“It’s an ancient university with ancient traditions, love. Naturally there are balls.”

“Actual balls?”

“As actual as they come. At first I found them ridiculous, but soon came to appreciate them. There’s much to be said for dancing as foreplay.”

“I’ll bet there is,” she purred, sliding closer to him then stifling a shriek as he dipped her backwards, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

When they were finally ready to leave, Emma kissed Pietro’s cheek, causing him to blush furiously as he waved away their attempts to pay, then Killian took out his phone to call an Uber.

“Don’t,” said Emma. “Let’s walk.”

“Are you sure, love? Those shoes don’t look terribly conducive to a long trek.”

“It’s not that far, and it’s a nice night.” She took his hand. “Come on.”

He lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of hers. “Lead the way, Swan,” he said, for the second time that evening. Emma smiled to herself at how comfortable he was with her being in charge. It was one of the things she loved about him.

They walked in silence for a moment, Emma thinking blissfully how perfect the evening had been. She didn’t think she’d ever felt closer to Killian than at that moment, and she sensed that the time was finally right to ask the question that had been at the back of her mind for ages. She squeezed his hand gently, then asked it.

“Will you tell me about Liam? How he died, and what happened with the navy?” She looked over at him. “I feel like it’s the only thing I don’t know about you.”

“Perhaps not the only thing,” he said with a wicked smile. “But certainly one thing.” He hesitated a moment. “This is a long story, Swan, and not a very pleasant one. I’m not sure it’s appropriate first date fodder.”

“I already know your favourite colour and how you like your coffee, and that you have terrible taste in movies,” she teased.

“Hey!”

“Please, I’d like to know about this. I want to know all of you.” 

He smiled at that, and then took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“I feel that some background is required for you to fully understand what happened, and why,” he said. “Much of this I’ve already told you, about my mother dying and my father’s neglect, and my time at Oxford. But I omitted many details which were crucial to Liam’s fate.”

She nodded. “Tell me everything.”

Killian took a deep breath, then began, “Liam was eight years older than I, and for all my life he was my protector, both brother and father, as our actual father was never what you might call parental. When our mother got sick and couldn’t care for me anymore, Liam took over. He made certain I had regular meals and clean clothes and that I went to school every day. After she died, he took several part-time jobs to pay the bills, as my father was regularly too drunk to work. When I was eight, my father left us. Sold our house and disappeared in the middle of the night.”

“He sold your house?! That’s definitely a detail you omitted before!” 

Killian nodded grimly. “Aye. That house was the only asset we had; my mother had inherited it from her parents, and the fact that we hadn’t had to make any rent or mortgage payments was the only thing that made it possible for Liam to support us. It turned out that my father had racked up gambling debts with the house as collateral, and rather than allow his creditors to take it he sold it to a real estate speculator then took the money and ran, leaving the two parties to sort things out between them. Some men appeared at six in the morning to claim it as theirs, and some others arrived half an hour later with the same claim. They tried to get us to tell them where our father had gone, but of course we didn’t know. When Liam couldn’t answer their questions, they started to beat him. I tried to help him but I was too little, and they threw me against a wall and knocked me out. When I came to, I was in one of our neighbours’ garden. Liam had managed to drag me out of the house and hide when the men fell to fighting amongst themselves, but we’d left all of our things behind, and we had nowhere to go. We slept on the street for a few nights until one of our other neighbours spotted us and offered to take us in. She was elderly and had no family, and she needed someone to look after her. Mrs Silver was her name. She was a tough old thing; somehow she managed to get most of our belongings back from the men who took our house, I still don’t know how she did it.”

He paused, deep in thought, and Emma reflected on everything he’d told her. Her heart ached for the boy he’d been. She could imagine how he must have looked then, a small child with blue eyes huge in his little face and messy dark hair falling over his forehead. He must have been adorable. That anyone could have hurt him infuriated her, and his father… well, it was fortunate that his father was long gone, because Emma really didn’t want to go to jail for murder.

Killian shook himself out of his reverie, and continued his tale. “We earned our keep in Mrs Silver’s house, cleaning and cooking and taking care of her. She was a taskmaster, but she was not unkind. She kept Child Protective Services away from us, prevented them from separating me from Liam. We owed her a lot for that. When I was twelve she died, and we learnt to our surprise that she had left us her house in her will. By then Liam was twenty and working full time, and he was able to sell the house for a good price. The money was enough to send me to public school as a boarder, and so Liam went into the navy.”

“Hold on, how do you board at a public school? And isn’t it free?”

“Not in England, there public school means private school. I know it’s confusing. What you would call a public school in England is called a state school, or a comprehensive. By the time I was twelve, I was quite far ahead of the other students in my local comprehensive, which was not a particularly good school, but there were a few great teachers. They saw my potential, but knew I was unlikely to get a good university place if I remained there, so they helped me get a place at a well-known public school, one that was particularly intended to groom boys for Oxbridge.”

Faint bells were ringing in Emma’s head. She had read something about this… “What was this public school called?”

“Eton.”

“Isn’t that where Prince William—”

“Yes,” he said shortly, clearly not wishing to be sidetracked. “Swan, my schoolmates will have to be the subject of another conversation, though my years at Eton laid groundwork that is essential to this tale. Public schools are… well, suffice to say that they are not the most nurturing environments, and for a smallish boy from working class Bristol that is particularly true. But I learnt self-reliance there, and I made some lifelong friends.

I had a partial bursary which was supplemented by the money from the house and Liam’s savings, and that was just enough to pay my tuition and my boarding costs, though Liam sent back most of his navy pay every month as well. I worked hard and was able to finish my exams at 17, and got a place at Balliol. I wanted to take a gap year, but Liam insisted that I start at Oxford straight away, and he had done so much for me I couldn’t say no, even though I was desperate for a break. I couldn’t tell him most of what went on at Eton, I didn’t want to upset or worry him, but the truth is I was miserable most of the time and the only good part of my life there was the studying. I learnt Latin and Greek and French and Italian and Russian, and philosophy and mathematics, and I read so much. I studied things I could never have been exposed to had I remained in Bristol, and that alone made everything I suffered in school worthwhile.

Fortunately, Oxford turned out to be better than I’d feared, far more diverse and open than Eton. There were people from other countries there, and people with backgrounds more similar to my own, and I was able to establish a wide circle of friends. Plus I discovered within a fairly short space of time that women tend to find my face appealing, and that was a… pleasant revelation.” She snorted at that, and he grinned at her.

“Throughout those years, I still maintained contact with my Eton friends, several of whom were also at Oxford, though at different colleges. We saw each other less often than before, but remained close nevertheless. The scars made when we are young tend to linger, and shared scars are an unbreakable bond. Even though I haven’t seen them in, oh, at least ten years, I could call upon them today if I needed help, even from across the ocean, and should they do the same I would do everything in my power to help them. That is the legacy of public school education, for good and ill.

I’ve already told you the story of how I left Oxford. I remained there for as long as I could, but by the time I completed my thesis I knew that I didn’t want to remain in academia permanently. I wanted to see the world, like my brother. I knew he would be angry, particularly about the way I left, but I thought once we were in the navy together he would forgive me, that it would be us united against the world again like when we were boys.” He shook his head. “I was still only 24 and really quite naive, despite everything. I didn’t realise how different my trajectory in the navy would be to Liam’s, and how that would affect our relationship.

Liam had enlisted, and he served for three years before he was offered the opportunity to go to the Naval Academy in Dartmouth to train as an officer. I, on the other hand, was a graduate of Eton and Oxford, and although the military today is far more egalitarian than it once was, those things still carry a disproportionate amount of weight. I had the right accent and the right connections, and so naturally I was sent to Dartmouth straight away. From there I advanced rapidly.

One of my friends from Eton, Robert, his father was a high-ranking admiral, and he knew me well, my having spent many a school holiday at their house in Cornwall. With Liam away I had nowhere else to go, and Robert and I were very close; I’d once helped him fight off a group of older boys who were bullying him and he was determined to look after me in whatever way he could in return, including ensuring that I never had to stay alone at school during the breaks. I know his father paved my way in the navy, though I don’t know for certain what exactly he did. No one ever queried it, or questioned my worthiness for such an ascent, including myself. Cronyism of that sort is standard practice, it’s why so many people in power today come from public school backgrounds. They protect their own, and I was one of their own. Despite the fact that as a boy I hadn’t belonged in their world I had learnt to adapt to it, found a way to fit in. I spoke their language, knew the people they knew, and they trusted me in a way they could never trust Liam, whose origins were evident the moment he opened his mouth. Class in the UK is a complicated thing, and how one speaks is important.”

“So Liam didn’t sound like you?”

“No, I had to change my accent to survive at Eton, but he had a strong Bristolian accent to the last.”

“What does that sound like?”

He smiled wryly. “Like a pirate.”

“Really? Like ‘Arrr, matey,’ that sort of pirate?”

“He laughed. “That is a truly terrible attempt, Swan, but yes. What we think of as the ‘pirate accent’ originated with Robert Newton in the 1950 film version of _Treasure Island_ , and he was playing Bristolian.”

“So that’s what you sounded like when you were a kid?”

“Aye.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“No, nor I anymore. It’s been so long.”

“So you shot up through the ranks of the navy, then what happened?”

“I was a lieutenant-commander, on the brink of promotion to commander, which was Liam’s rank. He had been passed over several times for promotion to captain, not unusual as captains are relatively rare in the Royal Navy, and many officers stall at commander, or even lieutenant-commander. But Liam was ambitious, and he wanted to be a captain. And I believe he was concerned that if I got my promotion and he was denied his, then we would have the same rank despite him being in the navy for twelve years longer than I.

He had command of a frigate, and he volunteered his ship for a dangerous mission, one which if successful would all but guarantee him a promotion. The night before he left, I went to see him to try to convince him not to go. The mission was borderline illegal; it required him to take his ship deep into hostile waters and if he was caught there it could be considered an act of war, leaving his ship open to attack. But he was insistent and I lost my temper, accusing him of caring only about rank. To which he replied that if he cared about rank it was because he had to work for his, unlike me, who simply rode on the coattails of greater men. That hit a nerve, because even though I had tried to earn what I had, I knew that without Robert’s father I wouldn’t have advanced nearly so far, wouldn’t be facing promotion myself. So I lashed out, as you know I do, and said some truly terrible things to my only brother, my only family. The next morning I regretted them, of course, but by then he was gone.”

Emma didn’t ask what he had said; she sensed that repeating it would be too painful, and despite his evident willingness to tell her the whole story she didn’t want to put him through that. 

“Two days later I was on my ship —I was second in command of a destroyer— when we received a distress call from Liam’s ship. They had been spotted in hostile waters and were facing threat of attack. My ship was close enough to go to his rescue, but my commander refused to consider it, as we had our own orders to follow and everyone knew that Liam’s mission carried grave risks. The commander felt that we shouldn’t escalate the situation by bringing another British ship into danger. But I couldn’t bear the thought of my brother dying with vicious anger the last thing we had shared between us.”

“So what did you do?”

“I knocked out the commander, restrained him, and took command of the ship. We managed to reach Liam’s location just as his ship came under attack. The destroyer was much bigger than the frigate, and our coming to her defence intimidated the hostile ships enough that they allowed us to retreat. But it was too late for Liam, he had been killed already by the first shots of the attack that we hadn’t been fast enough to prevent. So there I was, having sabotaged my naval career and still lost my brother. As you might imagine, I did not react well to either of those events. Once we returned to the base, I went AWOL for forty-eight hours, in an effort to drink myself to my brother’s side.

Ironically, it was my commander who found me and hauled me back, saving my life. He was furious over what I had done, of course, but before my infraction we had worked well together. I could tell that underneath his anger there was genuine concern for my well-being, though when I asked him why he was bothering with my sorry arse he informed me jovially that he simply didn’t wish for me to die and miss my court-martial. He was another good man whom I gravely wronged.”

“And did they court-martial you?”

“I committed rank insubordination, basically mutiny. They certainly could have court-martialled me, and really should have, I deserved it. But I had also successfully saved Liam’s ship and nearly all of her crew, and possibly averted a war. So Robert’s father was able to have it all swept under the rug, and I left with an honourable discharge.” Killian’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I vowed then that everything else I got in my life I would earn on my own merit, and so I left the UK for good and came here, to a place where no one knew me or where I came from or what I had done. And so, Swan, that is the tale of how my brother died and I left the navy.”

They had just stepped into the elevator of their building, and Emma slid her arm around Killian’s waist and leaned into him. “What a terrible thing for you to go through,” she whispered. “What a lot of terrible things. I’m so sorry.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. “Aye, it’s a grim tale. And yet there is a happy epilogue. Would you like to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“I came to America seeking anonymity and absolution, but while I found the one I could not achieve the other. I found that I couldn’t leave my conscience behind in England, or my memories. For weeks I was lost, adrift, trying to drink and fuck away my guilt, not truly caring if I lived or died.” Her arm tightened almost painfully around him, and he looked down at her. “Then one day I met a green-eyed, golden haired angel who made me want to live… if only to find new ways to provoke her ire.”

“Oh, Killian…”

“Should I not tell you this, Swan? That meeting you was the proverbial lightning bolt for me? That it brought colour and warmth back into a world that had gone very cold and very grey indeed?”

“But I was so awful to you! I slammed the door in your face!”

“Yes, that was a large part of the attraction. I'd never had a woman react that way to me before. Well, at least not before sex.”

She laughed.

“I’ve been in love with you for years, Emma. I know I don’t deserve you, and I just finished telling you I was done with taking what I don’t deserve, but I don’t think I could bear to let you go. That is, of course, if you’ll still have me.”

They had arrived at their apartment doors by that time, and were standing close together in the narrow hallway that divided them. Emma reached up and stroked Killian’s cheek. “Of course I’ll still have you,” she said fiercely. “I appreciate that you’re flawed and you’ve made mistakes, but so has everyone. So have I. What’s important is that you’re trying to be better. And I promise you Killian that whatever happens I will always choose to see the best in you.”

“Emma…”

“And I will love doing it, because your best is really freaking good.”

He dove at her, curling his hand around the back of her head and bringing their mouths together almost roughly. She clung to him as he poured years of love and longing into the kiss, thrilling at the depth and force of his passion for her. When the raging tide of his emotions had slowed to manageable levels, she wrapped her arms around his neck and took control of the kiss, trying to tell him that he may have been alone in his feelings at the beginning, but he wasn’t anymore, she was right there with him. She could tell he understood because he made the growling noise deep in his throat that she always felt to the tips of her toes, and backed her up against her door, his hands stroking down her body to her hips, bringing them flush with his. She whimpered, wanting to wrap herself around him, sink into his arms, finally feel him inside her again after so long apart, but the dim sense that they were standing in a very public hallway brought her back to her senses. Breaking the kiss, she panted, “I need my key. Unlock the door.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, his breath harsh and uneven. “Wait, Swan, wait, I— I don’t think we should take this further tonight.”

“What?”

“I just think—”he stepped back, running a hand through his hair, trying to control his breathing. “We’ve done this all arse-about-face, love and sex and dating. All in the wrong order. I think perhaps one of those elements needs to be removed from the equation, at least for a while, so we can focus on the others.”

Emma couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “You think we should stop sleeping together.”

“Aye. Just for a while. While we figure out what we have together apart from sex.”

She considered it, grudgingly at first, then with the dawning realisation that he was right. As much as her throbbing body hated the idea, she had to admit his point was sound. They needed to make things different from how they’d been before, draw a clear line between then and now. “All right,” she said. “But just for a while. To focus on the other things.”

He smiled and kissed her lightly, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “So, love, will you go out with me again? Tomorrow, for lunch.”

She smiled back. “I’d love to.” Retrieving her key from her bag, she unlocked her door, then turned back to him. “Goodnight, Killian,” she said sweetly.

“Goodni—” his reply was cut off by her lips as she closed them on his in a deep, ravening kiss. He groaned and reached for her, but she broke away and danced out of his grasp, darting through her door and closing it until only her face was visible. “I hope you didn’t think this no-sex thing was going to be easy,” she said archly. “Sweet dreams, babe.” She shut the door and locked it firmly, then leaned against it, listening to his chuckle from the hallway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, love,” he growled, in a voice that promised retribution. “Be ready at eleven.”

 

That night Emma slept soundly in her bed for the first time in a week, her face buried in Killian’s pillow and the tiny alabaster swan clasped tightly in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The canon Captain Hook from (I think) the original Peter Pan play attended Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, so I thought it was fitting for Killian to go there too.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross-posting on AO3 and Tumblr like a boss, because I’m finally starting to get the hang of how things work over there (I think). Massive thanks to @rouhn for the amazing artwork and to @teamhook for the lovely welcome to Tumblr, and to everyone else who's followed me and shown support, you all are amazing.

Killian was nervous. An edgy, twisted ball of electric anxiety hovered just beneath his heart, making him restive and unfocused. It was unfamiliar, and he disliked it.

It had begun to form the day before as he’d packed his things, his friends’ banter barely registering as his mind tried to process everything that had happened with Emma. It had all been so fast and so unexpected that he wasn’t certain he could trust it, and slowly doubts began to creep in, plaguing him with their insidious logic.

_Of course she doesn’t really love you, she didn’t mean it, it was a joke, you misheard her, she’s going to cancel your date, it isn’t really a date, it was all a dream._

His rational mind knew that these fears were ridiculous, but that did nothing at all to stop them. They had played on a loop in his mind and refused to be quieted until the look on her face when he gave her the swan, then those three precious words falling easily from her lips again reassured him.

But now the nerves were back.

Despite —or perhaps because of— all that he had been through in the course of his life, Killian had always approached every new challenge with a smooth, almost brazen confidence. He had faith in his abilities and trusted his judgement (and knew deep down that if he was excessively hard on himself for errors of that judgement it was because his standards for himself were so high). He was aware that this confidence sometimes manifested as swagger, as an arrogant cocksureness which some people found so obnoxious that he could use it to his advantage to distract them and draw their attention away from his real intentions or his deeper character. That swagger had saved his life at Eton, baffling the bullies who’d believed the small boy from a working class background would be easy prey, throwing them so off kilter that they’d not only given up their attempts to bully him, but soon began to look to him for leadership. It had been Killian’s first victory over forces that should have defeated him, and he’d never forgotten it.

In short, Killian loved a challenge. He loved matching his wits against whatever life saw fit to throw at him, and so long as he was able to keep his darker impulses at bay, to resist the urge to hurt those who’d hurt him or to punish himself too extravagantly for his failures, he actually enjoyed facing down difficult situations, knowing that the tougher the obstacle the greater the triumph. However, lying beneath his cocky facade had always been a fundamental sort of apathy. If things didn’t work out at Eton there were other schools; if they didn’t work out at Oxford there were other universities; if they didn’t work out in the navy there were other ways to make a living; where he went or what he did mattered little to him. But now Killian was facing a challenge the stakes of which were earth-shatteringly important. If things didn’t work out with Emma, there were no other women. She was _it_ for him, and that was terrifying. If he made a mistake, if he disappointed her or failed to be what she deserved, he wasn’t sure that even he could survive it. Nothing in his life had ever mattered so much as being worthy of Emma’s love.

Hence his nerves.

He’d been up since five o’clock that morning, unable to sleep due to an absurd excess of nervous energy, plus a healthy dose of sexual frustration that was his own bloody fault. He had thought long and hard about how to ensure that a real relationship between himself and Emma would work, had run every imaginable scenario through his head before finally accepting that they only way was to take sex off the table for a while, so they could explore what else they had together without the risk of falling back into old habits. He remained certain that this was the best decision in the long run, and had been reassured by Emma’s acquiescence, but that was cold comfort at three a.m. when he lay in bed struggling to suppress his waking dreams of her, hard and aching and wishing his arms didn’t feel so empty without her in them.

He glanced at his phone and was relieved to see that it was one minute to eleven. Running anxious fingers through his hair one final time, he grabbed his bags and left his apartment, knocking on Emma’s door at eleven o’clock precisely.

She opened it wearing such a happy smile that he was momentarily breathless. He doubted he’d ever get used to how beautiful she was, much less that the happiness on her face was there because of _him_.

“Right on ti—” she began, before he stepped forward and cut her off with a kiss. He was ruthless, ravaging her mouth with every shred of the not inconsiderable skill that he possessed, wringing a helpless little moan of pleasure from her, but when she moved to wrap her arms around him he stepped back again, noting with satisfaction the desperate, dazed lust in her eyes. Exactly what he’d felt when she’d laid a similar kiss on him the night before.

 _Turnabout is fair play, my love_

“Let’s be off, then, Swan,” he said innocently, and she blinked at him, her expression sharpening as the lust cleared from her eyes.

“Bastard,” she hissed.

He leaned into her space, leading with his hips and bending his head so that their lips were a breath apart. “I hope you didn’t think this was going to be easy, darling,” he purred.

She tried not to laugh, but he grinned at her and kissed her lightly on the cheek, and she couldn’t help herself.

“All right, all right, I’m ready, let’s get going. Where are we going, anyway?”

“Now, Swan, all will be revealed in good time. Last night was your surprise, today is mine.”

“Lead on, then,” she said. 

 

 

They went to Riverside Park and then to the West 79th Street Boat Basin, where Killian led them to a small sailing yacht made of dark wood. 

“Climb aboard, Swan,” he said, unable to keep a tinge of pride from his voice. 

Emma gaped, her eyes wide as she boarded the boat and turned in circles on her deck. “Is this _your_ boat? It’s beautiful.”

“Aye, _she_ ,” he shot her a significant look, “certainly is. I bought her about a year ago. Normally, something so fine would be far beyond my means, but this old girl had been badly damaged by her incompetent arse of a former owner, so I was able to purchase her for a bargain price. She still needs a lot of work before she’s seaworthy again, but we’re getting there.” Killian stroked the boat’s railing fondly. “I missed the sea a great deal after I left the navy, and even just being out here on the river with her has been a joy.”

“What’s its— what’s _her_ name?”

He smiled approvingly at the correction. “She doesn’t have one. I wanted to get to know her before naming her. A boat’s name should match her personality.”

Emma thought for a moment. “What about something piratey, like the _Jolly Roger_ or something?”  
He shook his head. “It’s a bit obvious, plus it’s taken. That’s the name of Captain Hook’s ship.”

She grinned. “I know. _Peter Pan_ is something I’ve actually read. When I was a kid I loved it, loved the idea of a place where kids could go to get away from the grownups and just live their lives. I always wanted to join the pirates, though. I liked Captain Hook, he was definitely better than that little shit Peter.”

“Mmmmm, I quite agree. Plus, he’s a fellow Old Etonian, so I’m obligated to favour him for the sake of the alma mater.”

“So, the _Jolly Roger_ it is, then?”

“No indeed, Swan, it’s still derivative, and this is not a pirate vessel.”

“What kind of vessel is it?”

“It’s a pleasure craft, darling,” he said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. “Would you care for a tour?”

“I’d love one.”

He took her around the boat, pointing out key features and the repairs and alterations he’d already made, plus those that still needed to be done. She listened intently and asked insightful questions, and her genuine interest in something so important to him warmed him to the depths of his soul.

 _This is going to work,_ he told the nagging voices of doubt in his head. _I_ _t’s bloody well going to_

After the tour they sat on the deck with the picnic that Killian had brought. Emma nibbled on a sandwich, looking thoughtful. “Do you think you could teach me to sail?” she asked. “Once the nameless boat is fixed up, I mean?”

Killian’s heart stumbled, then soared. “Of course, love, if you’d like to learn. But I don’t imagine the nameless boat will be ready for at least a year. I don’t have as much time as I’d like to work on her now, and I’m going to have even less with the new job.”

“That’s all right, I’d still like to learn. And maybe I could help with the fixing up.”

He looked at her closely, wondering if she knew that she’d just implied they would still be together in a year or more. But she just smiled at him, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning over to kiss her, brushing her hair back from her face as he did. “Nothing would make me happier, love,” he said.

 

*.*.*.

 

That week they saw each other every evening, going out for dinner someplace in the neighbourhood, walking home together, then kissing each other senseless in the hallway before returning to their respective apartments.

On Friday Killian cooked them dinner at his place. When Emma arrived, she was surprised to see his books all packed away in boxes, the beautiful carpet rolled up and leaning against a wall. Somehow over the past few days she’d managed to forget he planned to move. She went into the kitchen where he was digging around in another packing box, this one marked “kitchen tools.”

“I know I put that bloody thing somewhere,” he muttered. “Ah, here it is.”

“So, you’re still moving?” she asked.

He looked up in surprise. “Well, yes. I have to, I gave notice. They’ve already found another tenant. It took them about thirty seconds, you know what New York real estate is like.”

_Move in with me_

The words gathered in her throat, clamouring for release, but she swallowed them back. It was far too soon, they’d only just started building a real relationship, weren’t even having sex at the moment. Trying to move too fast would be a huge mistake, she reminded herself, would endanger the delicate situation they were still learning to navigate.

But dammit, she hated the idea of him living so far away.

“It’s not another planet, Swan,” he said with a smile, reading her mind. “It’s just uptown. Thirty minutes on the subway.”

“I know. It’s just going to be different. I’m going to miss having you near.”

“Me too, love.”

_Then stay. Live with me_

The words were almost choking her. She forced them back and asked instead, “So when are you going?”

“Well, I’d planned to go last weekend, but then, well…”

She nodded, “Yeah.”

“But I have to be out by the end of the month. So about two and a half weeks.”

Two and a half weeks, thought Emma. They’d have to make the most of them.

 

 

Later they sat entwined on his sofa pretending to watch a movie while they made out like teenagers, his back against the armrest as she sat astride his hips, her hands roaming his shoulders as he ran his fingers through her hair. There was something insanely hot about it, thought Emma, about just kissing, knowing that it wasn’t going any further. Their clothes remained on, their hands in plain sight, but their mouths plundered and explored, lips clinging and tongues tangling, moving from soft and tender to deep and wet and back again. She lost herself in the simmering pleasure of it, her mind empty of everything but thoughts of him and his lips and how obscenely good they felt on hers. He kissed like he enjoyed kissing as a thing in itself and not just a prelude to the main event, and as someone who had until very recently preferred one night stands, scratching her itch in an almost businesslike way, that was new to her. New and fucking amazing, and she loved it. She was pretty sure she could kiss him for hours and still want more.

Slowly she became aware of something, the sound of loud music that seemed significant, and she broke away, recognising it as the movie’s end credits. “Is it over already?” she panted.

“Hmmmm?” Killian’s eyes were unfocused.

“The movie, it’s over.” They had agreed that she would go home after the movie finished.

He glanced over at the TV. “Credits still rolling,” he said, and pulled her lips back to his.

When they came up for air again, the credits were long finished and the screen showed only the DVD home menu.

“Killian,” she managed, before he leaned up and captured her mouth again, “Mmmmm, the movie’s over.”

“What?”

“It’s over. The movie.”

He blinked, slowly coming out of his daze and registering his surroundings. “I don’t remember a minute of it.”

“I don’t think we watched a minute of it. How long was the run time?”

He picked up the DVD case from the floor next to him and looked at the back. “152 minutes.”

They exchanged amused looks. “Have we been making out for two and a half hours?” she asked.

“It would appear so.”

Silence fell for a moment and then they both started to laugh.

“What can I say, Swan, you have a most enthralling mouth.”

“And you have a most… comfortable sofa,” she teased.

“Would you like it?”

“What, your sofa?”

“Aye. The place I’m moving to is furnished —it’s a sublet from another professor who’s gone on sabbatical— so I’ll just have to put it in storage. And don’t take this the wrong way, love, but your sofa is dreadful.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “Would you really let me have it?”

“I’d far rather you got some use out of it than have it gather dust in a storage unit.”

She ran her hands over the smooth brown leather dimpled with buttons. The sofa was beautiful, like everything Killian owned. He had remarkably few possessions but they were all gorgeous and clearly carefully chosen. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll take good care of it.” If she couldn’t have him living with her, she’d make do with his sofa, she thought wryly.

 

*.*.*.

 

A week later —another week of intimate dinners and long kisses, but still no sex— Emma returned home from work with a copy of the New York Times she had picked up as cover to hide behind as she was tailing her latest client’s husband. A glance at the clock told her that Killian would be home soon, with plans for dinner. Emma sighed. Part of her had absolutely loved the past few weeks. They’d done all the sappy crap she’d suggested and more: dinner with Mary Margaret and David, a night out with Will and Robin, even lunch with Milah. It had all been amazing. _He_ was amazing. She loved him more every day and unfortunately _that_ was the problem. She wanted to express that love physically —to fuck his brains out, to use what he’d call _the vernacular_ — and not being able to was really starting to get to her. Each evening they spent together ended the same way, with them pressed against her door, sinking into each other for several long, aching moments before he dragged himself away and she went home to writhe fitfully in her bed alone, dreaming of him. She felt antsy and unfocused, her temper shorter than usual, and she was developing a disturbing tendency to daydream. It was at the point of beginning to affect her work. Perhaps that argument might sway him, she thought. _You have to fuck me, or I might lose my job._ She shook her head with a small, exasperated smile. It wasn’t that bad. Yet. If the situation didn’t change soon, who knew what she might be driven to. Having to find a way to convince Killian to sleep with her was not a problem she’d ever envisioned having, and she really wasn’t equipped to handle it.

Flopping down on her old sofa —Killian had yet to relinquish his— she picked up the newspaper and began absently leafing through it, running her eyes over the pages but not really reading it until from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a face she’d hoped never to see again. Her breath caught painfully in her throat as shock gripped her, nausea washing over her in waves. Struggling to remain calm, she shut her eyes and breathed deeply and regularly until she felt the symptoms begin to recede. Slowly, she opened her eyes and took up the paper again, forcing herself to look at the photograph that had sent her spiralling: a beautiful, haughty-eyed woman and the man that Emma had spent the past eleven years trying to forget. _Billionaire’s Daughter to Wed_ announced the accompanying headline. _Tamara Vanderbilt Green, daughter of CEO Peter Green, is set to marry her executive fiancé Neal Cassidy next month at the Plaza Hotel._

Emotions were coursing through her, bubbling and swirling together so that she could barely identify what they were. Only one stood out. Anger. Neal was getting married. Neal, who had convinced her to drop out of high school and become a petty criminal, who had set her up to go to jail for a crime he’d committed, who had knocked her up then left her when she’d told him, abandoning her to suffer a miscarriage all alone, _fucking_ _Neal_ was marrying a billionaire’s daughter. Emma fumed.

_So much for karmic fucking justice_

 

The sound of a key in the lock heralded Killian’s arrival. Emma tossed the newspaper aside and plastered on a smile as he entered.

“Good news, love, I managed to get a reservation at that new place you wanted to try— what’s wrong?”

 _Damn_ his ability to read her like an open book. She attempted the smile again. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He sat on the sofa next to her and reached for her hand. “Emma…”

“Nothing’s wrong, Killian!” She snatched her hand away and jumped to her feet.

He gave her that patient look he always wore whenever she was being unreasonable, the one that reminded her he had three degrees and spoke six languages. It set her teeth on edge. “Love, it’s obvious that’s not true.”

She fought for calm. “It’s just— I— look, it’s not important.”

He rose and wrapped her in his arms. “Of course it is. What’s upset you, darling?”

She wanted to melt into him, to pour it all out and let him take care of her, but the habits of a lifetime were hard to break. She pushed away. “I’m not upset! Why are you always prodding at me, can’t you just leave me alone!”

Temper flared in his eyes. “Oh, no, don’t you do that. Don’t try to push me away. It’s not going to work, but it will piss me off.”

She folded her arms across her chest and set her jaw stubbornly. “I’m not pushing you away!”

“You bloody well are. You’d rather start a fight than talk to me about what’s troubling you.”

She threw up her hands in frustration. “I told you I’m fine. Can’t you just leave it be?”

“No, I can’t. I’m not going to let you hide something that’s so obviously hurt you behind those bloody walls. You’ve got to let me in, Emma. If we’re to have a real relationship you have to trust me.”

She heard the hurt beneath the anger in his voice and it squeezed her heart. “You think this is because I don’t trust you?” Some of her own anger began to drain away, leaving an aching sadness in its wake. “Killian. Of course I trust you.”

“Perhaps, but you don’t see us as a team.” Cautiously, he approached her again, reaching out to brush the hair from her face before pulling her close. She didn’t resist. “But we are one. You don’t have to deal with everything on your own anymore, my love. I’m here for you and I’ve no intention of leaving. You can tell me anything, no matter what it is I’ll still love you and I’ll still be here.”

“It’s stupid.”

“I’m certain that’s not the case.”

“It’s—” she couldn’t just tell him about Neal getting married, thought Emma, he needed context. She needed to tell him everything. As he’d told her everything about his past. She wanted to tell him, she realised, wanted to share the burden of it, of what she’d been carrying by herself for a decade, what she’d never breathed a word of to anyone else. “It’s a long story. Let’s sit down.”

They did, and Emma took a deep breath and began, “You remember I told you I dropped out of high school when I was seventeen?”

“Aye.”

“Well after I did that I ran away from my foster home. With my boyfriend. His name was Neal. We stole my car together.” 

“Your car? That old yellow bug you still have?”

“Yeah. We took it and drove it down the west coast from Portland, heading for Florida. Tallahassee. We were gonna go there and start a new life together. We didn’t have much money but we shoplifted most of our food and snuck into motel rooms for the night. It sounds so sordid now but at the time it felt like an adventure, like we were rebels, Bonnie and Clyde, and for the first time in my life I felt excited about the future. Then I found out I was pregnant. When I told him, he disappeared for almost a month.”

“Oh, love…”

“When he came back I was working in a diner and I’d found myself a room to stay in. I was scared to death but I was starting to feel like I could maybe handle things on my own. But he found me and told me he had a plan for how to get us enough money to pay for the baby. He laughed when I said I had things under control. He always did that, laughed at me when I had an idea about anything. I dropped out of school because he told me I wasn’t smart enough to graduate, he laughed when I told him I wanted to go to college. I was… really insecure, and he was a lot older, and I believed what he said. I thought he knew everything about how the world worked. That’s what he told me anyway, and I believed him. So I quit my job and I went with him, helped him collect some stolen watches. He said we could fence them and get enough money to go to Tallahassee and raise our baby.

But he was just using me. I was still seventeen, underage, and he set me up to take the fall for stealing the watches. He made sure I had one of them on me, then called the cops and gave them an anonymous tip. They came and arrested me, which allowed him to get away with the rest of the watches. I went to juvie for nine months. The only reason it wasn’t more is that I only had one of the watches on me when I was arrested. A month into my sentence I lost the baby. Miscarriage.”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke of it. Even after more than ten years she still cried every time she thought about her lost baby. In her darkest moments she tortured herself with thoughts of what he would have looked like and sounded like, if he would have taken after her or Neal. Killian’s arms came around her tightly and pulled her into his chest. She gripped his shirt and let her tears fall silently for several minutes until she felt ready to continue.

“When I got out I stated waiting tables again while I tried to figure out what to do. I signed up for a GED program, started taking classes, started to feel better about things, more confident in myself. Then Neal showed up again.

He apologised for letting me get arrested, but he said he knew I’d get a light sentence because I was underage and pregnant, and it was my first offense. He said he’d fenced the watches and had some money, and we should go to Tallahassee like we’d planned. And I believed him. Again.” She shook her head, anger and sorrow at her past self threatening to overcome her. “I _wanted_ to believe him. He was the only person in my life who’d ever shown anything like concern for me. I think a part of me always knew it wasn’t real, but I wanted it so badly, wanted someone to love and share my life with. I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”

Killian swallowed hard and she looked up at him to see that his cheeks were also wet. She brushed his tears away and he smiled and kissed her forehead before laying his cheek on the top of her head while she snuggled into him and continued her story.

“We never made it to Florida, never got farther than Sacramento. There were always reasons why we couldn’t go, all lies but I believed them every time. It was more than a year before I managed to get away from him. By then I didn’t want to be with him anymore, had realised that it was better to be alone than with someone I couldn’t fully trust or really share things with, but he was so in my head, he made me believe that I couldn’t do anything without him, that I was stupid and useless unless he was there to tell me what to do. I know now that what he was doing was emotional abuse, that he was intentionally undermining my self-worth so that I’d be reliant on him, but back then… I was so young and so vulnerable, no family, no one who cared about me, and he targeted me. He knew I’d make the perfect victim, and I did.

What finally got me free was when I found out that he was planning to set me up again. I heard him on the phone one night when he thought I was asleep. Apparently he’d got into drug dealing and some other stuff, and he was making plans to frame me for drug possession, again as a distraction so he could get away. He laughed and told the person on the phone that I didn’t suspect a thing, that I’d do anything he told me to. That… triggered something in me, and I started to see how he’d been manipulating me from the beginning. It made me angry, so angry I promised myself there was no way I was going to let him take me a second time. The next morning I told him I wasn’t feeling well and asked if he’d go get me some soup. When he was gone, I searched the room and found a load of cash he’d been hiding from me and the drugs that he was going to use to frame me. I took the money and the bug and I left, got on the road and just started driving, as fast as I dared. I drove for two hours and then I called the police and tipped them off about the drugs. I don’t know what happened to him after that. I drove across the country until I got here, to New York, figuring that if he came looking for me it’d be easier to hide in a big city. I got a job, got my GED, eventually started working in bail bonds then got my degree and started working as a P.I., I’ve told you all of this before.

I never saw Neal again, though for years I was scared he’d find me, was always looking over my shoulder and not letting anyone near me in case they double crossed me too, or somehow turned out to be working with him. I don’t know, it was dumb, but fear isn’t rational. Even now there’s still some part of me that’s scared he’ll find me and somehow I’ll lose everything I’ve worked to build for myself.” She sniffed, and sat up.

“And now look,” she picked up the paper and thrust it at him. “He’s some sort of executive now and marrying a fucking billionaire heiress. He’s landed on his fucking feet, again, after everything he did and tried to do to me.”

Killian’s eyes widened when he saw the picture in the paper. “Neal Cassidy? That’s the Neal from your past?”

“Yeah— wait, do you know him?”

His expression was grim. “I’ve met him. Peter Green is a major donor to Columbia. He and his daughter are often at fundraising events to which faculty are also invited. I actually bought my boat from him, from Peter I mean, and now I recall he implied that it was his daughter’s boyfriend who was responsible for damaging her. I didn’t think much of it at the time, just that the boyfriend seemed like a bit of a smirking git and I wondered that someone like Tamara Green would be interested in him. I can’t believe this is the same pile of putrid excrement who—” He bit off the words, the small muscle in his jaw dancing furiously.

“I should have seen it,” Emma berated herself, finally giving voice to the words that had lingered at the back of her mind for a decade. “I should have known what he was…”

“No,” he cupped her cheek and turned her to look at him.”No, love, don’t ever think that. You wanted to believe the best of someone you loved, and that’s a good thing. You have nothing to reproach yourself for.”

“I was so stupid—”

“Not stupid, _never_ stupid. Just a bit naive. And you mustn’t think that because he’s marrying into money that means he’s won out over you in some way. _You_ won, darling. You got yourself out of that situation and away from him, and made yourself into something extraordinary.”

She couldn’t suppress a smile. “I’m hardly extraordinary.”

He didn’t smile back, just fixed her with a look so adoring and sincere that it stole her breath. “You really don’t see it,” he said wonderingly. “Gods, Emma, I wish I could show you what _I_ see, when I look at you. Your bravery and strength and resilience, and your overwhelming goodness. After everything you’ve been through you’ve never given up, never stopped trying to make things better, not just for yourself but for others as well, and yes, my love, that _is_ extraordinary.”

Emma could feel his love as an almost physical thing, enveloping her, its warmth and security surrounding her and filling up the empty spaces inside her that she’d tried so hard for so long to ignore. _This_ was what she’d wanted from Neal, she realised, this support, this sense that she could never truly be alone again because she had a partner who would face down anything that came at them right alongside her. Killian had said they were a team, and she knew then that he was right.

_He’s always right about me_

She loved him so much she almost couldn’t bear it.

Needing release for her surging emotions, she dove at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him fiercely, first his lips then his cheeks and forehead and down his neck. “I love you,” she chanted, almost like a prayer, “I love you, I love you. I want to _make love_ with you.” She pulled back and framed his face with her hands, looking into his eyes. “Please don’t go tonight,” she whispered. “Stay with me. Stay forever.”

His eyes were blazing, molten blue. “I will never leave you. Never, unless you tell me to go.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Aye, love.” He vowed it, in the breathless heartbeat before he swept her up into his arms. “It is.”

 

Barely three weeks had passed since their last night together, the blissful, intimate night that had come before the terrible fight that nearly broke them. Such a short time, and yet the change it had wrought was monumental. All the heat and passion that had always existed between them was magnified, heightened almost unbearably by the depth of their understanding and by the love they could now, finally, fully express.

They shed their clothes frantically, popping buttons and ripping seams in their haste, then came together in an intense embrace, sighing into each other’s mouths at the feel of their bare skin pressed together once more. Emma gripped his shoulders and dragged the tips of her breasts up his chest, shimmying slightly to feel the soft abrasion of his hair on her nipples while Killian lifted her leg to wrap it around his hip, stroking the length of his cock through her dripping folds. They lost their balance then and tumbled onto the bed, laughing breathlessly for a moment before twining themselves around each other even more ardently than before, their kisses deep and hot and their hands everywhere, wanting to do all the things they had desperately missed yet knowing that they were both too far gone for foreplay. He rolled onto his back with her pressed to his chest and she sat up, taking barely a second to position herself before sinking down onto him, sighing with relief at finally feeling him in her again, eyes drifting shut, her whole body tingling from the glorious stretch and friction. His hands gripped her hips as she lifted herself up again and when she slammed back down he was there to meet her, thrusting up into her wet heat so hard they both gasped at the force of it. Bracing her hands on the headboard she rode him with everything she had, glorying in their bruising passion until his thumb stroked roughly across her clit and her orgasm burst within her, the waves breaking over her so powerfully she feared for a moment they might sweep her away. She collapsed, her arms no longer able to support her weight, and he caught her up, rolling her beneath him without breaking the rhythm of his thrusts, stroking her through her pleasure and coaxing it to greater heights. She moaned helplessly, and feeling herself about to fall for the second time grasped his shoulders with desperate fingers and pulled him to her. “Come with me, Killian,” she whispered in his ear. “I love you, come with me, _now,_ babe, I love you _…_ ” With a choked groan he buried his face in her hair and did as she asked, coming as hard as she had, and the feel of him pulsing deep inside her sent her hurtling back over the edge, right alongside him, where she belonged.

Afterwards, they lay tangled in each other and still joined for a timeless moment, adjusting to their new reality. There would be no separating them again, they both realised, wherever they went, whatever they did, they would be there and do it together. Nothing and no one could break their bond.

Emma stroked his face with gentle fingers. “Move in with me,” she whispered, knowing his answer was a foregone conclusion, even before the words formed on her tongue.

He nodded. “As you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Killian's boat looking something like this, only smaller and in darker wood: https://www.boatshop24.co.uk/yachts/brigantine-modern-yacht/231087


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was meant to be the last chapter, but it got a bit long so now I think we'll have at least one more. I can't believe I once thought it could be wrapped up in four or five! Anyway, thanks once again to everyone for reading and kudos-ing and liking and reblogging, I know I'm terrible at responding to comments and reviews but I genuinely appreciate every single one so please keep them coming!

Killian moved in the next day. Why wait, they both thought, he was already packed and they saw no reason to spend any more time apart. His leather Chesterfield took up far more space than her saggy old sofa, but Emma thought that the lovely exotic rug really pulled the room together. (“Where did you get this?” she asked, sinking her toes into the soft pile. “Azerbaijan,” he replied, and she gaped. “Well, that’s a story I need to hear.” He shook his head. “Another time, Swan, we need to discuss this bookshelf.”) They squabbled for an hour over what to do with all his books, both of them exasperated yet secretly delighted that they could have a heated argument over something so mundane. It was such a normal, couple-y thing to do, and they loved that they could be annoyed with each other to the point of shouting, confident that their relationship was sound enough to handle it.

After some debate they also opted to keep Killian’s bed. It was characteristically beautiful, with a wrought iron frame and a mattress so thick and soft that Emma almost wished they had been sleeping in it from the beginning. But more importantly, changing beds was another small mark of transition from their old relationship to their new one. They’d had some good times in Emma’s bed —some phenomenal, mind-blowing times— but both were ready to move forward and make new memories.

It seemed like as soon as they had finished making _her_ place into _their_ place, the holiday season was upon them. It was a time of year that Emma normally dreaded. Having no family and few close friends meant she was left out of most of the festivities, and she hated having to pretend she didn’t care, hated having to deflect her friends’ and colleagues’ concern. Still, she had her traditions. Thanksgiving dinner normally consisted of Chinese takeout, and her Christmas tradition was pizza and _Die Hard_ (“The _best_ Christmas movie,” she insisted to Killian, who was unmoved by her vehemence. “Incorrect, Swan,” he said firmly. “The best Christmas movie is without question _The Muppet Christmas Carol_.”)

This year couldn’t have been more different. Not only did she have Killian to share things with but she had become closer than ever with David and Mary Margaret, so much so that when they issued the annual invitation to their massive Thanksgiving dinner, for the first time she accepted. With Killian at her side it felt less like imposing on her friends’ kindness and more like joining in. And when Mary Margaret learned that Killian’s expat friends had no plans for a meal (“It’s not really our holiday, love, we normally just get drunk and watch _Blackadder,_ ”) she extended the invitation to them as well, not even blinking when Milah asked if she could bring a date.

“Who’s this date of Milah’s?” Emma asked Killian as they were getting ready to leave.

“I’ve not met him,” Killian replied. “She’s being very cagey about the whole thing.”

“Do you think it’s serious?”

“Perhaps. I can’t recall her ever seeing the same man more than once, let alone the, what, three weeks she’s been seeing this one. After what happened with her husband, she’s naturally a bit gun shy.” Emma could understand that. Milah’s ex-husband had attacked her with an ancient ornamental dagger, tried to stab her in the heart. It made sense that she would be wary of trusting another man.

“It’s a good sign that she wants to include him in social activities with her friends,” she said brightly, to lighten the mood.

“Aye, I thought the same. Serious or not, though, he’d just better treat her well or I will fucking flatten him,” said Killian grimly.

 

The meal turned out to be the most fun Emma had ever had in a crowd of people. She tended to be a bit stiff and awkward in social situations with people she didn’t know well, but Killian dialled his charm up to eleven and broke the ice so effectively that she soon found herself chatting comfortably with everyone, even Mary Margaret’s very girly friends. The food was delicious and plentiful and they all gorged themselves, then everyone sat down together to watch football, despite the British contingent’s loud protestations that American football would be more aptly referred to as “hand-egg.”

The one hiccup in the day came when Milah arrived with her new boyfriend, whom she introduced as “Eddie.”

The tall man at her side looked slightly pained. “Edward,” he said, “Please.”

Killian shook his hand and chatted civilly, but it was evident from the first that the two men would never be friends. Their clash of personalities was almost deafening.

“Isn’t he rather old for that hair?” Killian snarked when he and Emma had a moment alone in the kitchen, collecting drinks for everyone. “He looks like he belongs in an Alice Cooper cover band.”

Emma started to laugh. “Killian, he looks like you.”

“He bloody does not!”

“Same blue eyes, same dark hair—”

“Plenty of people have that colouring! Milah herself has it!”

“—same piratical expression.”

“ _What_ expression?”

“He looks at Milah like he wants to plunder her. Like you look at me.”

“Swan, that’s a load of utter bollocks.”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Well, I would certainly never deny that your body is a treasure trove which I take great pleasure in plundering, and perhaps my expression does sometimes reflect that, but I absolutely refute the obscene assertion that I am anything like that… that…” He trailed off, for once at a loss for a metaphor.

Emma was firm. “Milah says he used to be in the British Merchant Navy and now he works at the public library. He’s a sailor who loves books, just like you, and he uses his outward appearance to distract people from the fact that he’s a big nerd, like you. He’s you, just older and with longer hair.”

He considered her words, clearly debating whether to be flattered or insulted. Finally, he shrugged. “Perhaps there’s something in what you say, but I still don’t like him.”

“Of course you don’t. We often don’t like seeing our qualities reflected in other people, though Carl Jung did say it could help us to a greater understanding of ourselves.” She couldn’t help feeling a bit smug, dropping in this little bit of information. Killian may have read _The Odyssey_ in the original Greek, but psychology was her wheelhouse.

He stopped what he was doing and looked at her, eyes full of warmth, his face lit with an adoring grin. “Have I ever told you that you are bloody brilliant?” he asked.

She grinned back. “Only every day.”

“Well, it bears repeating,” he declared, walking her back until she was pressed against the refrigerator, catching her lips in an open-mouthed kiss that had her humming and wrapping her arms around his neck. His hands slid down her body and gripped her hips, pulling them tightly to his so she could feel his cock hardening against her core.

“Easy there, tiger,” she said breathlessly, pulling away from the kiss. “What about the drinks?”

“Sod the drinks,” he growled. “That lot won’t die if they have to wait five more minutes for their—”

“Oi, where’s my bloody beer?” came a shout from the living room.

“—beer,” Killian finished on a chuckle, leaning his forehead against hers. Will might not die if he had to wait for his beer, but he would certainly whinge loudly about it. “All right, all right, let’s take them their bloody beer,” he grumbled.

 

Some time later, Emma sat sprawled in a chair, sleepy and replete, watching as Killian played on the floor with Robin’s son Roland, his silly antics making the boy howl with laughter.

_He’d make a good father_

The thought came out of nowhere, and Emma waited for the fear and anxiety that would inevitably chase it, but there was none. Killian _would_ make a good father, and while she was not entirely certain she’d be a good mother, she knew that there would come a time, maybe not even in the very distant future, when she might be prepared to give it a go. With him.

 

*.*.*.

 

They elected to spend Christmas alone. David and Mary Margaret had invited them for dinner, but they wanted to try cooking for themselves. Killian was a decent if limited cook, and Emma had learned from her weeks of making them breakfast that she could follow a recipe with mostly non-disastrous results. Between the two of them, with a fair amount of trial and error, YouTube tutorials, considerable mess, and quite a lot of both arguing and laughter, they managed to produce an edible —and in places delicious— meal.

Emma was delighted. At the back of her mind the idea she’d first had at Thanksgiving was still lingering… if, someday, she and Killian had a family of their own, well, they would want to be able to make their own Christmas dinner.

With both their universities on winter hiatus and it being a slow time of year for private investigating, Emma felt like she could breathe for the first time in months. At her boss’s urging, she took the week between Christmas and New Year off and spent it nesting with Killian in their apartment, working on the boat, and cuddling on the sofa together, drinking hot chocolate laced with cinnamon and rum while the snow fell softly outside their window.

 _This is what I’ve always wanted_ , Emma realised one evening, sipping her cocoa and watching Killian read one of his ancient books, her feet tucked under his leg and his hand absently stroking her thigh. _This is the home I’ve spent my life looking for. Wherever he is, that’s my home._

He seemed to sense her eyes on him, and looked up from his book. “What is it, love?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just… happy. I still have a hard time believing it. That after everything I’ve been through I managed to find this, to have this with you. It’s like…” she groped for the words, “It’s like us being together, finding each other, has made all the bad things from my past just sort of fall away, like they don’t matter anymore.”

“Aye, love, I know just what you mean,” he replied. “‘Μια λέξη / Μας απελευθερώνει όλο το βάρος και την πόνο της ζωής: Αυτή η λέξη είναι αγάπη.’”

He peered at her over the top of his glasses and her thighs began to tingle. _Fuck, he’s hot when he’s being smart,_ she thought _._ “Well, okay, wow, what language is that?”

“It’s Greek. Sophocles. ‘One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: This word is love.’ Falling in love with you, knowing you love me in return, that has done more to help me come to terms with all the ugliness from my past than anything else ever could. Every mistake I’ve made, all the harm I’ve caused, I know that it can all be overcome, and that it’s worth the effort of overcoming it because you see something in me that deserves your love.”

The tingling in her thighs had spread clear to the tips of her toes at his words, and she squeezed her legs together, not wishing to spoil this moment, this conversation, with her crazy lust. “I just wish I’d seen it sooner, not been so afraid. We could have had this years ago if I’d been willing to take a chance.”

He looked thoughtful, the cogs of his sharp mind almost visibly turning, and she had to bite back a groan. “Perhaps not,” he said finally. “Perhaps it simply wasn’t the right time. When we met I was still so raw, you were still so angry. If we’d attempted a relationship then it could easily have failed and we’d have been lost. It may be my lifetime of reading Greek tragedies, but I tend to believe that things are fated, not just events but the times and places for them. I have no doubt that you and I are meant to be together, but the circumstances had to be right, we had to go through the experiences we did to prepare us for each other, so to speak.”

“Mmmm, I guess I can see that,” she replied, but her tone still held doubt. 

“Well, if you were unconvinced by Sophocles, here’s another quotation that might sway you: ‘Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs / Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes.’ Shakespeare. Not really my era, but you can’t deny the man had a knack for turning a phrase.”

Emma’s heart was thundering in her ears now and her panties were drenched. _Who just pulls Shakespeare out of thin air?_ she thought, almost desperately. 

“And what does _that_ mean?” It pleased her that her voice trembled only slightly.

“It means that when we are apart from those we love our untethered feelings act as a smoke that blinds and confuses us, but when we are together the smoke dissipates, leaving only the fire of our love and the warmth we feel together. Perhaps we were both blinded by the smoke for a time, Emma, but it’s gone now and all I see is fire when I look at you.”

Emma could swear that the fire he spoke of was inside her, burning her up, and she couldn’t stand it any longer. “It’s so insanely hot when you quote things,” she panted, crawling into his lap, removing his book and his glasses and setting them aside. “Even better when you explain them. I bet all your students are in love with you.”

He grinned wickedly and pulled her forward until her hips were flush with his. “Not _all_ of them,” he purred, trailing kisses along her jawline and down her neck. “Certainly no more than ninety percent.”

She ground her hips into his as he twined his fingers in her hair and tugged her head back, exposing her neck to his hungry mouth. He licked along her collarbone and sucked on her pulse point, and she moaned. “What could the other ten percent be thinking?”

He detached himself from her neck and cupped her face in his hands. “Honestly, I don’t care,” he said roughly, his blue gaze burning into her soul. “None of them matter. No one matters to me but you. I love you so much, Emma, it’s almost more than I can bear.”

She knew exactly how he felt. “I love you just as much,” she whispered, covering his hands with hers. “So much it actually hurts.”

“Aye,” he said, “An ache in the chest, another person wrapped around your heart. I feel it too. And I know how to ease it.”Gently he pulled her mouth to his and took it fully, sliding his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and wrapping his other arm tightly around her waist as he kissed her with slow, languorous strokes of his tongue and lips. She sank into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him sweep her away on the tidal wave of their passion, cocooned in the warmth of his love.

 

*.*.*.

 

Emma entered the pub quietly, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. She found a stool at the far end of the bar and slid into it, watching Killian down at the other end serving a group of giggling young women. He was set to start in his new role at Columbia the following week and so had picked up a few shifts at the pub as a sort of farewell. He appeared to be just as in his element as ever, his charm on in full force, but there was something about the scene that struck Emma as different from the last time she’d seen him bartend, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“He doesn’t get hit on anymore,” said a voice behind her. She turned to see Robin leaning against the bar at her elbow. “He used to have women all over him, the bastard. Could take his pick, every night. That’s all changed now. They still flirt, of course, but it’s different. _He’s_ different. He might as well have a giant flashing sign on his forehead that says ‘TAKEN.’” Robin paused to pour Emma a shot of rum. “He’s so happy now, Emma. You probably don’t see the change, but the rest of us do. He used to have a… a darkness in him, even when he was smiling and laughing, it was always there, sort of lurking behind his eyes. Since he’s been with you, properly _with_ you I mean, that darkness is gone. It’s like he’s a different man.”

“He’s still the same man,” said Emma, “He’s just— free. What you see now is what he’s always been deep down, finally out from under the weight of that darkness you mentioned. He’s forgiven himself for things he should never have carried blame for in the first place. That’s what did it.”

“ _You’re_ what did it,” Robin replied. “Don’t ever underestimate the effect you’ve had on him, Emma, or how profoundly he values you.”

His words resonated deeply with Emma. She knew intellectually how highly Killian thought of her, believed him implicitly when he said he would never leave her, knew in her soul how completely he loved her, but deep in the darkest corner of her being there remained a small part of her that still found his devotion hard to fathom and hard to accept. All her life she had thought of herself as fundamentally unlovable, easily abandoned or betrayed by anyone she cared about, and despite _knowing_ beyond any doubt that Killian was different she couldn’t quite silence the small voice whispering that there was another shoe somewhere waiting to drop, that he had put her on too high a pedestal— one that would crumble over time, would collapse once their honeymoon period was over and he looked at her with clearer eyes, when he realised he’d been wrong about her.

Resolutely, she shut her ears to the voice and smiled at Robin. “His heart is safe with me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.

Robin returned her smile with a gentle one of his own. “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “I just hope you realise how safe yours is with him.”

“I do,” Emma promised. “Truly. I still have… some things to work through, but they’re about me, not him. I have no doubts at all about him.”

 

*.*.*.

 

By the end of February they had settled into a comfortable routine. After a resoundingly successful first semester that saw her acing every one of her classes, Emma felt much more confident in herself as she began the second one, more able to balance her studies with her job. Killian, however, struggled in his first few weeks with the heavier teaching load and the increased demands placed on him at the university, namely that if he wanted a shot at tenure he would have to publish more.

“I’ve had a number of articles in academic journals over the years,” he told Emma over breakfast the Saturday morning after his first week of work. “Even when I was in the navy I managed to keep my hand in, as it were. But now it’s looking increasingly like I’m going to have to produce a book, and I don’t mind telling you that the prospect is a daunting one.”

Killian planned his book-writing project almost obsessively, taking his time to choose his topic and do some preliminary research. It exhausted him at first, but once he actually got stuck in to the work he realised he felt quite enthusiastic about the whole undertaking and threw himself into it with gusto, grabbing every spare minute he could scrounge for reading and drafting.

Every morning he woke up early to make the commute uptown and Emma made a point of getting up at the same time, unable to suppress her guilt at having prevented him from taking an apartment considerably closer to his job.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Swan,” he chided her. “I’d far rather live here with you than alone up there, regardless of how short my commute would be. I have no regrets, and I don’t mind if you’d prefer to sleep a bit longer.”

She never did, though. Despite her hatred of early mornings, she liked waking up with him, making coffee while he showered, kissing him goodbye at the door.

One Friday afternoon in early spring when the merest hint of a chill remained in the air but the warmth of the sunshine promised softer days ahead, Emma caught a break that allowed her to wrap up her current case far earlier than she’d expected, and when she realised she had no other pressing cases she decided to take the afternoon off and go up to see Killian at Columbia. She hadn’t yet been to see his new office, and figured now was as good a chance as she’d likely ever have to do so.

As she approached his office she saw that the door was ajar, allowing her to hear clearly the voices from within.

“I don’t wish to rush you if you have something important you need to discuss,” Killian was saying, “But the subway is in chaos today and I’d really like to get home before midnight.”

“That’d be a lot easier if you lived within a reasonable distance. Why _do_ you live so far away?” A female voice inquired.

“I live with my girlfriend,” replied Killian, and Emma’s heart danced at hearing him casually call her that. “Our place is near her work and school. I don’t mind the commute.”

“It must be exhausting, though,” the woman insisted. “Where does your girlfriend go to school?”

“NYU.”

“Couldn’t she get in here?”

“I don’t believe she wished to.” Killian’s voice was cool.

The woman gave a light laugh. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said unconvincingly. “I’m just a bit surprised that you would date someone who doesn’t share your interests.”

“I have other interests besides my work,” said Killian shortly. “Now, do you have any questions about the reading assignments for this week?”

Emma knocked on the door rather more forcefully than she had intended, causing it to open almost completely to reveal Killian at his desk, a gorgeous young woman with auburn hair seated in the chair in front of it. His eyes lit up when he saw her.

“Hello, love,” he said, getting up and giving her a hug and a soft kiss. “This is unexpected.”

Emma smiled. “I finished early today, so I thought I’d come meet you, thought maybe we could have dinner somewhere around here for a change.”

“That sounds lovely. I just have a few things to finish up, then I’m all yours.” He smiled warmly at her, then seemed to remember the woman in the chair. “Oh, Emma, this is one of our graduate assistants, Alexandra. Alexandra, this is my girlfriend, Emma.”

Alexandra’s eyes raked Emma up and down, and she pouted slightly. “Nice to meet you,” she said in a tone that suggested it was anything but.

“And you,” replied Emma, reminding herself sternly that Killian adored her and she had nothing to fear from a snotty twenty-something who looked like Jessica fucking Rabbit. She looked back at Killian’s face. He was still smiling at her, his eyes just as full of love as ever, and she relaxed.

“Well, Alexandra,” he said, dragging his gaze away from Emma. “Unless there’s anything else you need, I’ll see you on Monday.” It was a clear dismissal.

The young woman stood, gathering up some books and papers and putting them into an expensive looking leather tote. “No, that’s it,” she said. “I’ll see you Monday, Dr Jones.” She gave Emma a small, hard smile and left.

The moment she was gone, Killian swept Emma up in his arms and deposited her on the edge of his desk, kissing her fiercely. She clung to him, mind whirling. He couldn’t mean to… here in his office… The idea exhilarated her. But after a minute, Killian pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers.

“I’m bloody glad to see you, Swan,” he said. “I’ve had the very devil of a day. Just give me twenty minutes to finish up a few things, then we can get out of here.”

Emma couldn’t stop a flash of disappointment from crossing her face. He raised an eyebrow at her, accompanied by a predatory grin. “Oh, don’t imagine I haven’t thought about it, love,” he purred, “Just not today. Today I want to forget about work and go out to dinner with the most beautiful woman in the world, then spend the weekend making love to her.”

Emma laughed, all thoughts of the young redhead wholly forgotten. “ _All_ weekend?” she asked archly.

“Why, do you have other plans? Somewhere else you need to be? Something better you’d like to do?”

“No,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close again, “Your plan sounds perfect.”

 

*.*.*.

 

Early in April, Columbia held a fundraising evening which Killian was informed that he was expected to attend. Although such events were far from his favourite pastime, he recognised the importance of generous donations in keeping the university running smoothly —and more importantly paying his salary— so he agreed readily.

“But don’t feel as though you have any obligation, love,” he said to Emma. “You’re invited, of course, but if it would make you uncomfortable…”

“Because of Neal and Tamara, you mean,” she said, her tone grim.

“Aye, they’re almost certain to be there.” He watched her worriedly, not wanting to upset her with mention of her loathsome ex, wanting even less for her to be exposed to the man’s presence at a formal event. He wished, not for the first time, that he could just annihilate Neal Cassidy, wipe him from existence and spare Emma from ever having to waste another thought on him. Killian didn’t hate easily but he did hate thoroughly, and he had never hated anyone as he did the man who’d abused and betrayed the woman he loved, who’d damaged her so deeply that she still wasn’t wholly free of his influence. It was going to take all Killian’s willpower not to smash the bastard’s face in even without having to witness him causing Emma distress. If Cassidy upset her, Killian wasn’t certain he would be able to control his temper. For that reason, as much as he wanted Emma by his side, delighting as he did in any opportunity to show her off, he almost hoped she would choose not to go.

“I want to go,” said Emma, and Killian had to bite his tongue not to argue with her. It was her choice and he would respect that, but dammit he hoped Cassidy would contract some species of weeping rash that would keep him bedridden for a month and far away from polite company. Some sort of nasty infection would do nicely, shingles perhaps, that could be crippling or even deadly in adults. Killian indulged himself for a moment with some delightful fantasies of Cassidy hunched over in pain, oozing blisters all over his face and body.

“Are you certain, love?”

“Yes.” Emma had that determined look that he so adored, and he was torn between hoping she would change her mind and being incredibly bloody proud of her. “It’s time I faced Neal again. If I’m ever going to really move past what he did to me, I think I have to. And where better than in a group of very rich people, at least two of which Neal needs to keep from knowing about his shady past?” She gave him a searching look. “Are _you_ going to be okay? I mean, you’re not going to put anyone in the hospital, are you?”

“I'll make no promises,” he said in a lame attempt at humour.

“ _Killian._ ”

“Yes, yes, all right, I won’t punch anyone. At least not unless they really fucking ask for it.”

She rolled her eyes and he reached out to snag her arm, pulling her into his embrace.

“I’m sorry, darling, I know you can handle yourself and you don’t need me going all caveman, swinging my club about and covering the place in testosterone, but regardless there is a very primitive part of me that can’t stand the thought of being polite to someone who caused you so much pain, a part that just wants to settle old scores with some time-honoured physical violence. I’ll try to keep that part in check, but I might need you to drag me away if things get too hairy. Perhaps we need a safe word?”

She sighed and snuggled into him. “Honestly, me not wanting you to punch him is more not wanting you to get in trouble than wanting to protect him from violence. There’s a big part of me that wants to punch him too. Let’s just promise that we’ll hold each other back if he tries to start something.”

 

The evening was in full swing before Emma spotted Neal. He was standing in a corner talking intently with a pair of older men.She stared for a moment too long and he sensed it, his eyes darting up to meet hers. Emma felt panic rising in her chest, but she forced herself to stand her ground and hold his gaze. His eyes narrowed in momentary confusion, then widened as he recognised her. He took a step forward and she struggled not to run. 

Just then, Killian came over and slipped his arm around her waist. He didn’t notice Neal. “Love, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he said, and she allowed him to lead her away, noting the dark, ugly expression that crossed Neal’s face at the sight of her and Killian together. 

Emma chatted for a few minutes with the people Killian introduced her to, then excused herself and headed for the ladies’ room. Once there, she sat for a moment in a quiet stall, breathing deeply and reminding herself that the worst was over. She’d seen him, he’d seen her, she’d kept it together, and now she’d be fine.

She heard voices as two women entered the room. Peering through the crack around the stall door she observed that one of them was Alexandra, the graduate assistant she’d seen in Killian’s office, poured into a short, skintight gold dress, and the other was a blonde woman about the same age.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here Lex,” the blonde was saying, “There’s no way you’re going to snag Dr Jones. Have you seen the way he looks at his girlfriend? That man is taken.”

“I’ll find a way,” hissed Alexandra.

“Even if he were attracted to you, sleeping with you could cost him his job. Why would he risk it? I don’t know why you don’t just go out with Jake, he’s absolutely panting after you _and_ he’s our age and not a professor.”

“He’s a child,” scoffed Alexandra, “I want Killian. I want a man I can admire, who’s seen things and done things and can do things to _me_. I bet he knows exactly how to handle a woman.”

Emma suppressed a sigh, and the urge to bang her head against the stall door. She really did not need this right now, but she knew she had to do something before Killian found himself cornered by a young woman who didn’t seem the type to take no for an answer. She opened the door and stepped casually out. The blonde’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, but Alexandra remained impressively unperturbed.

“Oh, he definitely does,” she said coolly, meeting the other woman’s eyes in the mirror. “There’s no one like Killian, in bed or out. But your friend is right, Alexandra. Killian would never sleep with a student, even if he _weren’t_ completely satisfied at home, and I can promise you that he is.”

“Bitch, please,” said Alexandra, and Emma barely stopped her eyes from rolling. “I know all about you. You’re a P.I., which is what people do when they’re not good enough to be real cops, and you study social work, which isn’t even a real subject, at NYU, the school for people not smart enough to get into Columbia. You really think you can hold the interest of someone as brilliant as Killian? He’ll be bored by you within a year, and when your pretty blonde princess schtick wears off, I’ll be waiting.”

Emma regarded the younger woman with a tinge of pity. Her words were well-calculated to hit every one of Emma’s insecurities about her relationship: the idea that she wasn’t smart enough or interesting enough to hold on to Killian, that eventually he’d see that she wasn’t worth the trouble and leave her just as everyone else had. But somehow the barbs missed their mark, and Emma realised that hearing her insecurities voiced by someone else finally managed to drive home just how unfounded they were. Of course Killian would never leave her, for a grad student or anyone else. He knew her better than anyone ever had, and he loved her completely. He wasn’t going to suddenly discover something he didn’t like about her, everything that could have driven him away he’d already seen and accepted. Hell, he put up with her treating him like crap for ages, had loved her through all her dithering and pretending she didn’t love him back. The only thing that had brought him even close to leaving was her apparently choosing to date another man.

 _“I’ll never leave you, unless you tell me to go.”_ Well, she never would. He was hers forever, hot grad students and shady ex-boyfriends and all else be damned.

“If you really think that then you don’t know Killian at all,” she said, allowing some of her pity to leach into her voice, enjoying the flush of anger it sparked in the younger woman’s cheeks. “You’re an awful snob, and he _really_ isn’t. He’d actually be pretty disgusted to hear the things you’ve just said. Did you know that his closest friend works at a bar? A bar where _he_ used to work? Did you know that every Sunday he teaches an adult literacy class at a community centre near our apartment? Yeah, I didn't think so. Killian is nothing like you, nothing like what you seem to think he is. You shouldn’t assume that everyone feels the same way you do about things. I’m not ashamed of anything about my life, and Killian thinks I’m ‘bloody brilliant’ and tells me so every day. You can try to seduce him, I suppose, but I really wish you wouldn’t. You’ll just humiliate yourself and cause trouble for him. You claim to admire him, would you really want to cost him his job?”

Alexandra’s flush came more from shame now than anger, and Emma pressed her advantage. “You really should give this Jake a chance,” she said. “He may be young, but that won’t last, and I’m here to tell you that there is nothing in life as wonderful as having a partner who thinks you hung the moon. Maybe Jake could be that partner for you. You’ll never know unless you try.”

Alexandra said nothing, but Emma could tell her words had struck a chord. Quickly, she washed her hands and headed for the door. As she was pulling it open she heard a quiet voice behind her.

“Thank you,” said Alexandra.

“You’re welcome,” Emma replied.

 

When she returned to the reception hall, Neal was waiting for her. “Emma?” he said, and her gut clenched at the sound of his voice.

“Hello, Neal.”

“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“I saw your wedding announcement in the paper, so I figured you’d be here with your wife. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Yeah, thanks. But I have to say I'm surprised to see  _you_ here. It's been, what, ten years since you fucking turned me in to the cops and disappeared with my money, no trace of you anywhere, then you turn up at a place like this? I mean, it doesn’t really seem like your kind of shindig. A high school dropout at an Ivy League fundraiser?” He chuckled derisively.

He was aiming right for her old insecurity, trying to put her on the defensive and make her feel small. It had always worked in the past, but as she stood looking at him, at the grey in his hair and the lines of hard living on his face, his petty, mean spirit twisting his expression and turning his genial features into something ugly, she discovered that he had entirely lost the power to hurt her.

“The same could be said of a petty criminal,” she retorted. “Do you really think you belong here more than I do? I’m working on my masters degree, and my boyfriend is a professor. This is pretty much exactly where I belong. What have _you_ done with your life? After you finished being a drug dealer, I mean? Wrangled some cushy job at your father-in-law’s company? Does he know about your criminal past?”

Something like panic flashed in his eyes before being quickly replaced by malice. “Boyfriend, huh? Killian Jones? You sure about that? He doesn’t strike me as the type to stick to one woman for long.” Neal’s eyes narrowed, and his voice became threatening. “Does _he_ know about _your_ criminal past?”

Emma was getting really tired of people insinuating that Killian was going to lose interest in her. “Yes, actually, he does,” she snapped. "We have no secrets from each other. Unless you can say the same about you and your wife, I suggestyou leave me alone. I’d be quite happy never to see you again, but if you try to cause trouble for me or for Killian, I will not hesitate to make your life very unpleasant.”

“What could _you_ do—” he blustered, and she cut him off.

“I’m a private investigator; I am very, very good at finding dirt on people. I know you, Neal, and I know that there’s no way you aren’t still involved in something shady. Cross me, and I promise you I will find out what it is and tell everyone close to you what you really are.”

He took a step closer to her. “I could make you regret threatening me…”

“Maybe, but do you really want to risk it? You’ve got a lot to lose that I could take away. I’m not a lonely, vulnerable teenager anymore, pushing me around won’t be nearly as easy as you remember. What do you say we just pretend this conversation never happened and go on ignoring each other’s existence?”

Neal hesitated, anger simmering under his skin, and then Killian materialised at Emma’s side. His expression was thunderous, his body tight with coiled rage, prepared to strike. Neal recoiled at the hatred and barely contained violence in Killian’s eyes, and he took an involuntary step back.

Emma laid a calming hand on Killian’s arm. “Babe, I was just telling Mr Cassidy here that all this glad-handing has given me a bit of a headache. If you’re ready, I’d like to go home.”

Killian drew a deep breath and forced the snarl from his face, replacing it with a politely neutral expression. “Of course, love.” He tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow. “Shall we?” They turned together and left the room, ignoring Neal’s eyes boring into their backs as they went.

 

Once they were outside, Killian wrapped his arms tightly around Emma and kissed her temple. “Are you all right, love?”

She nodded. “Better than all right. Fantastic, actually. I finally feel free of him. He can’t hurt me anymore.”

“I don’t know, he certainly looked keen to try.”

“He can’t hurt me in any way that’s _important_. He’s nothing to me now, just a bad experience from long ago that I intend to forget.” She let her hand slide down his back, resting it lightly on the curve of his ass. His arms tightened around her, and she smiled. “C’mon, babe. Let’s go home.”

 

As she dozed on his shoulder in the taxi, Killian stroked Emma’s hair with one hand, and with the other he toyed with a small, velvet box in his jacket pocket. The box had been burning a hole in all his pockets for weeks now. He carried it everywhere, waiting for the right time to present its contents to Emma, a time that had persistently refused to appear. Finally, though, he was beginning to sense that he wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

“Soon, my love,” he whispered in her sleeping ear, “Very soon.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cookies for everyone who spotted that Milah's boyfriend is Blackbeard, whose real name was Edward Teach. 
> 
> If there are any Greek scholars reading this, I am aware that the quote Killian cites is rendered here in modern Greek, despite Sophocles having written it in the fifth century BC. I could not find it transcribed in Ancient Greek anywhere, so please don't @me, and please no one ask how long I spent researching the differences between ancient and modern Greek to see if anyone would notice.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, the final instalment of my first multi-chapter fic! I have always wanted to try my hand at writing the sort of thing I personally like to read, and it's been great fun not only to do that but also to discover that what I like to read is what so many of you like to read as well. Thank you again to everyone who has read, commented, kudos-ed, liked, and reblogged, I am honoured and inspired by it all, and already looking forward to getting stuck in to the next story.

_~3_ _1/2_ _years ago…_

Killian stumbled into his new apartment and flopped on the sofa with a groan, flinging his arm across his face. He felt hideous, hung over in body and soul. The past few weeks had been nightmarish, a blur of bars and women and bad decisions that were meant to distract him but never truly did. No amount of rum or sex could fix the ruin of his life but he had no other tools at his disposal, no real idea of how to dispel his pain and guilt at Liam’s death and his shame at the end of his naval career.

There was one small bright spot, he reminded himself. Despite the ignominious way he’d departed from Oxford, Killian found that after the better part of a decade away he was not opposed to easing back into academia. At least it would give him something to do besides drink and fuck. He’d been lucky to find the opening for an adjunct professor at Columbia, lucky that they were willing to sponsor a visa for him, give him the chance to start fresh somewhere new, somewhere he could earn his place. It was a real opportunity, one he desperately wanted not to fuck up. Which meant he had to pull himself together, Killian thought, his first class was tomorrow and he needed to be prepared for it, needed to plan, needed to be focused. He groaned again, cradling his aching head. He needed a cup of tea.

Dragging himself off the sofa, he went to the kitchen and put the kettle on, then pulled open the refrigerator door.

“Fuck.” He’d forgotten to buy milk. “Fuck, fuck, bloody buggering damnation, now what?” He really didn’t want to walk all the way to the shop in his condition, but tea without milk was unthinkable. Perhaps there was a kindly neighbour in the building who might spare a drop, he thought. Unlikely, but he supposed it was worth a try.

Taking a moment to splash cold water on his face and run damp fingers through his hair, and put on some clothes that didn’t smell like alcohol and sadness, he went across the hall and knocked on the door directly opposite his own.

It opened, and Killian’s world tilted sharply on its axis, shifting everything around him, altering the course of his life forever. The woman standing before him was a vision, sunlight shining through her pale gold hair, green eyes wide in the most beautiful face he’d ever seen. She looked like an angel, like a fairy tale princess, like— like someone who could never be within the reach of the likes of him. He stood, stunned, struggling for breath and for sanity, aware he was staring but unable to tear his eyes away.

_Say something, gobshite_

Desperately, he groped for his charm, the one thing he could always rely on to get him through difficult situations. It came to his aid, as it always did, and he produced a dazzling smile.

“Hello,” he said, “I’m Killian Jones, I just moved in across the hall. I was wondering if I might borrow a drop of milk.”

For the briefest moment their eyes met and something flashed between them, a recognition, like calling to like, a profound sense of _home_. Then it was gone, so abruptly he thought he’d imagined it, and her expression slammed shut followed quickly by her door.

“No,” she said, punctuating the flat declaration with the click of her lock.

He stood outside her door for what could have been seconds or hours for all the notice he took of the passage of time. After… however long it was, he turned away and headed for the elevator. Suddenly, he felt up to walking to the shop. The air and the exercise might clear his head.

He felt different, he realised, somehow… brighter. The pain and the guilt and the shame were still there, the sense of unworthiness, the general despair. And yet he couldn’t help feeling that in a world where a woman like that could exist and could live across the hall from him there might also be a place for hope. Hope that maybe he could pull through, that he could make things better, _be_ better. Hope that he could discover what had made her slam the door in his face, in _his face_ , for fuck’s sake —he paused for a moment to examine the reflection of it in a shop window; somewhat worse for wear perhaps, but still devilishly handsome. What had she seen in it that no one else did? She was intriguing, and she was bloody gorgeous, and against all probability it seemed she had relit a spark of vitality in him that he thought had died with Liam. For the first time since his brother’s death, Killian found himself feeling that there might be a chance for him yet.

 

*.*.*.

 

_Present day…_

Killian burst into the apartment with such exuberance that the door nearly leapt off its hinges. “Swan!” he called, striding into the living room where Emma was on the sofa reading a textbook, and pulling his laptop out of his bag, “You’ve got to see this!”

He opened the computer and presented it to her with a flourish. On the desktop was the home page of the _New York Times_.

_Green Enterprises Executive Charged With Misappropriation_ , declared the headline. _Neal Cassidy, son-in-law to CEO Peter Green, has been charged with misappropriating company funds, he is being remanded in custody as prosecutors convene a grand jury._

Emma’s jaw dropped, then she snorted. “I knew he was involved in something shady,” she said, “He couldn’t not be, it’s just who he is.”

“Well it looks like seeing you again put the fear of the gods into him, love,” said Killian, not even trying to keep the glee out of his voice. “It seems that he had been doing a decent job of hiding his activities, but the day after the fundraiser his pattern changed and he got sloppy. He was trying to cover his tracks, but the bloody idiot only managed to draw attention to himself. He might as well have stood under a big sign that read ‘Criminal Activity Here.’” He grinned at her in satisfaction. “There’s no way Peter Green will let him get away with thievery, that man values loyalty above all else. Tamara has already initiated divorce proceedings. He’ll be persona non grata in every financial centre in the world, even if he avoids jail, which is unlikely given the power and influence of the people he crossed.” He set the laptop aside and pulled Emma into his arms. “I’d still like to punch his arsehole face, but I have to say, as comeuppances go, this one is pretty bloody satisfactory.”

She remained silent, and he pulled back to look at her. “What are you thinking, love?”

She frowned slightly.“I’m thinking that I should be glad he’s finally got what’s coming to him,” she replied. “But I kinda don’t care. I meant it when I said I’m free from him. If he goes to jail that’ll be justice done, but it’s nothing to me beyond that.”

“You are far too good, my darling,” he said, raising an eyebrow, his grin tinged with malice.“ _I_ intend to revel in his downfall.”

She laughed and kissed his cheek, then slipped from his arms, sliding to the end of the sofa. He could tell that she had something to say, and needed space to prepare her words.

“Killian,” she seemed suddenly nervous. “Do you know what today is?”

He did. “Er… Wednesday?” he said teasingly, but she was focused inward and failed to pick up on his tone.

“Yes, but it’s something else too, kind of an anniversary. I mean, not really but just something you might remember, and—”

He decided to stop teasing, and took her hands in his. “One year ago today was the first night we spent together. Of course I remember, love, how could I not? I’ll never forget kissing you for the first time after years of dreaming about it, it was like all my Christmases had come at once. And as for what came after… well, it will forever remain one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.”

She flushed with pleasure at his words and at her own memories, but her expression remained troubled. “I’m so sorry for running away from you the next morning—”

“Darling, you have nothing to apologise for—”

“No, please, let me say this. I never told you why I ran.”

He opened his mouth, but she shushed him and carried on.

“I know you think it was because my past with Neal made me scared of getting close to people so I just automatically pushed everyone away, and that’s partly true. But if it had only been that I wouldn’t have run, just kicked you out before you’d even gone to sleep, or at least I would have done that if it had been anyone but you. I’d never fallen asleep with a man before except Neal, and when I woke up that morning, for a minute I didn’t remember what had happened, I only knew that I felt warm and content and— and _loved_ , for the first time in my life. I felt like I belonged with you and I wanted to stay there with you forever, and I’d never felt any of those things before, not ever, not even with Neal. What I felt was stronger than anything I’d felt in my life and I barely even knew you, and that’s what scared me. I ran not because you were the same as the other men I’d been with, it was because you were so different. I just… wanted you to know that.”

Killian was stunned. Although he knew now that Emma had never hated him as he’d once believed she did, he’d had no idea that she’d felt such a strong connection to him so early on, that the irresistible pull he’d always felt towards her had never been one-sided. He suddenly remembered their first meeting, the brief eye contact, the overwhelming sense of having found the missing piece of himself, quickly dispelled in the face of her blunt rejection.

“Love,” he said slowly, “Do you remember when we first met, there was, well for me anyway there was a moment…”

She nodded, looking slightly ashamed. “I remember,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You felt like home. You always have. That’s what scared me most of all.”

Killian reached into his jeans pocket and withdrew a small, blue velvet box, caressing it gently with his thumb. It was old, the nap of the velvet worn thin on the edges. Inside it lay his most prized possession.

“Emma,” he began, holding the box up where she could see it, not missing her slight intake of breath. “This was my mother’s. It’s the only thing I have left of her, the one thing Liam was able to save. My father sold all her other valuables, but this Liam took and hid from him, knowing what a treasure it was. My mother was given it by her grandmother who had also inherited it from _her_ grandmother, going back I don’t even know how far. When Liam died and it came into my possession, I could never have imagined letting go of it, of the one thing that ties me to the mother I can barely remember. I do remember it on her finger, though, and I— I would like nothing more than to see it on yours.” He slid off the sofa and knelt before her, and opened the box. Emma gasped. “I know it’s not a traditional ring but we’re not exactly traditional people, and we’ve certainly not had a traditional courtship. This ring is a symbol of love and family to me, and I love you more than I am able to express, and I want you to be my family. You saved me from the darkness I was mired in when we met, pulled me into the light and into a life so marvellous I could never have envisioned it. I want to be with you every day until I draw my last breath and depart this Earth forever. And so, Emma Swan, will you marry me?”

He looked up at her face. Tears glistened in her eyes, dropping onto her cheeks as she tried to blink them away. She began to nod, swallowing hard, trying to force words through the constriction in her throat. “Yes!” she croaked, “Yes, Killian, yes, yes, _yes_!” Taking his face between her hands, she slid off the couch to kneel as he was kneeling, and began to kiss him, holding him tightly to her. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back until they were both breathless and laughing and he pulled away to take her hand and put the ring on her finger.

“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed.

“Like its new owner,” he replied with a brilliant smile, “It’s a wild pearl, small but flawless, much like you. Our family legend says that it came from somewhere in the South Sea Islands, what is now called Polynesia, brought back to England by an ancestor who had been a ship’s captain, some said a pirate.”

“Hah,” she said, “I always knew you had some pirate in you.” 

He chuckled. “The stones at the side are Bohemian garnets, added when the pearl was laid in this setting, probably sometime in the late nineteenth century. The ring itself is Welsh gold.”

“Killian, I— I’ll treasure it. I love you so much. I—” Overwhelmed, she kissed him again, wrapping her arms around his neck and toppling him backwards onto the carpet. When she broke the kiss he looked at her quizzically.

“I love this carpet,” she said, stroking it. “I have since I first saw it, when I went to your place to stop you from leaving, to tell you I loved you. Every time I look at it I think about that day and how I almost lost you, and how I never want to be apart from you again. I want you to make love to me on it now.”

He growled approvingly deep in his throat and kissed her deeply as he rolled her over onto her back, slipping his leg between hers and running his hand up her side, under her shirt, snapping open her bra and cupping her breast in his hand, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger until she moaned into his mouth. As he teased her breast she managed to unbutton his shirt and push it insistently off his shoulders. “Get this off,” she demanded, breaking the kiss and giving his shoulders a shove. Reluctantly he released her breast to sit up and pull off the shirt as she turned her attention to his jeans, undoing them in record time and reaching inside to grasp his cock. Now it was his turn to moan, looking down to see her hand adorned with his mother’s ring wrapped around him, stroking his heated flesh. He wondered if it was wrong that he found that insanely erotic. Nudging her off him briefly so he could divest her of her shirt and bra, he leaned down and latched his mouth onto her nipple, nipping it and bathing it with his tongue as she took him in hand again and he slid his own hand between her legs, blessing the stretchy leggings she wore. He stroked her clit with his thumb and slipped two fingers inside her, and her hand on his cock faltered under the onslaught of sensation from his touch. She revelled in it for a moment, riding his hand with small thrusts of her hips, then she pushed him away. “I want to come on your cock,” she panted, and yanked his jeans down over his hips then shimmied out of her leggings as he kicked the jeans away. She pulled him down to her, spreading her thighs wide as he positioned himself between them.

“Don’t be gentle,” she commanded, “If I don’t have rug burns on my ass when we’re done, I’ll want to know why.”

“It’ll be because this rug is made of silk,” he purred in her ear. Her laugh ended on a moan as he thrust inside her, heeding her proscription on gentleness, pounding himself into her as he lifted one of her legs under the knee and draped it over his shoulder, angling his hips to hit her in just the right spot.

“Oh, that’s perfect,” she gasped, lying back and letting him fuck her for several long minutes, her hands flexing in the nap of the carpet before she ran them up her own body and took her breasts in a firm grip, pinching and rolling her nipples as he loved to do. He groaned at the sight of her touching herself, and her eyes flew to his. The combination of intense love and almost feral lust in his expression sent her flying over the edge and she came hard. He fucked her through it, letting her little gasping moans and the feel of her quivering around him drive his pleasure higher. Just as he was about to come she shoved him off her and onto his back. He snarled, and she laughed. “Patience,” she purred, straddling and sinking down onto him in one smooth move. She took his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together above his head, leaning down to give his mouth access to her breasts as she began to ride him. He took her nipple into his mouth again, more roughly this time, sucking it hard between his teeth and dragging his tongue across the compressed tip. Soon she was breathing in short, desperate gasps and she came again within minutes, letting go of his hands and collapsing against his chest. He grabbed her hips and lifted them, slamming them down to meet his as he thrust up into her, again and again, desperate beyond control, until he exploded into an orgasm so strong it was almost painful.

They lay silent and entwined until their breathing steadied and the sweat dried from their bodies. “Gods, that was magnificent,” said Emma, finally, rolling off him and snuggling against his side, her head on his chest. “We’re sweating all over your silk rug,” she remarked.

“I don’t care,” he murmured, still coming down from his high, too blissful to give much of a damn about such details.

She traced random patterns in his chest hair with her fingertips. “Do you think we’ll still have sex like this once we’re married?” she asked, and he felt a stupid grin split his face at her casual use of the m-word. “You don’t think we’ll ever end up just doing lights-out missionary three times a year, do you?”

Killian had a sudden vision of himself and Emma, wrinkled and grey, making each other scream in ecstasy on the floor of a living room he didn’t recognise, in a house they had yet to buy. “No,” he said decidedly. “I do not believe that terrible fate will ever befall us.”

He could feel her hair brush across his chin as she nodded and her cheek flex against his chest as she smiled. “Good,” she said.

*.*.*.

 

_~3_ _1/2_ _years later…_

The wind whipped around Killian, ruffling through his hair and tossing up the collar of his shirt as he manoeuvred his boat out of the mouth of the Hudson and pointed her towards the open sea. It had taken far longer than he’d anticipated to get her ready for this voyage. A year or so’s hard work, he’d once figured, and she’d be set to go. That had been nearly four years ago, since which time life had consistently got in the way of his plans for repair and restoration of his beloved vessel. Yet Killian had no regrets, for the life that had thrown a wrench in his plans was far too good for him to wish it to be in any way different.

The bright sound of laughter reached his ears and he turned to see Emma standing at the boat’s railing, the tiny blonde source of the gleeful noise perched on her hip. His heart swelled at the sight of them, as it always did. His wife and daughter, the two great loves of his life, his cherished Emma and his darling Hope, who was the symbol of her namesake for him in every imaginable way. Even after three years of marriage, even after Hope’s first birthday celebrated just the week before, Killian sometimes struggled to comprehend that the life he was living was truly his. A tenured professor, a husband, a father, what had he done to deserve to call himself any of those things, a dark voice at the back of his mind still sometimes needled him. _Impostor syndrome_ , Emma called it.

She had completed her MSW with flying colours and had been working full time at the women’s shelter for over two years. Like him, she still sometimes had doubts about her worthiness for such a role, had days when she felt useless and like nothing she did made a difference, but those days were growing increasingly rare. Emma had really come into her own over the past few years, her confidence in herself and her abilities growing by leaps and bounds as she let go of all the insecurities that had held her back in the past. Killian was absurdly proud of her.

He needed to follow her example, he thought, to forgive himself for the mistakes of his past and accept that he _had_ earned his life, that he was a far better man than he’d been seven years ago, that Emma and Hope loved him and he made them happy. He was working on it.

He smiled as Emma came over to him, still laughing with Hope. The little girl held out her arms, the blue eyes she’d inherited from him sparkling merrily. “Daddy,” she said. He took her from her mother, balancing her on his hip with one arm while with the other he continued to steer. “Well, darling,” he said, nuzzling his nose into her blonde curls and breathing in her sweet baby smell, “What do you make of the boat? I hope you like her, as she bears your name.”

Emma humphed. “I still think we should have called her the _Jolly Roger_.”

“Swan—”

“In honour of your pirate heritage, Killian!”

“My very likely apocryphal pirate heritage!”

“ _Still_.”

He shook his head in largely feigned exasperation and she grinned, stepping in close and wrapping her arms around her husband and daughter, stroking Hope’s hair and resting her chin on Killian’s shoulder. He turned his head to press a kiss on her cheek.

And so the Swan-Jones family set out together for an adventure at sea, aboard the _Lady Hope_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry to anyone who thinks engagement rings should be diamond solitaires; I personally dislike diamonds and also think that sentimental softie Killian would want to give Emma something more meaningful.


End file.
